Ed Vulliamy in The Guardian
For many of our readers and potential readers, the Labour leadership result was a singular moment of hope, even euphoria. It was the first time many of our young readers felt anything like relevance to, let alone empowerment within, a political system that has alienated them utterly.
The Observer – a broad church, to which I’m doggedly loyal – responded to Jeremy Corbyn’s landslide with an editorial foreseeing inevitable failure at a general election of the mandate on which he won. For what it’s worth, I felt we let down many readers and others by not embracing at least the spirit of the result, propelled as it was by moral principles of equality, peace and justice. These are no longer tap-room dreams but belong to a mass movement in Britain, as elsewhere in Europe.
It came as a disappointment – as I suspect it did to others who supported Corbyn, or were interested – to find such a consensus ready to pour cold water on the parade. To behold so little curiosity towards, let alone sympathy with, why this happened.
Of course the rest of the media were in on the offensive. Our sister paper the Guardian had endorsed a candidate who lost, humiliated; the Tory press barons performed to script. Here was a chance for the Observer to stand out from the crowd. But instead, we conjoined the chorus with our own – admittedly more progressive – version of this obsession with electoral strategy with little regard to what Corbyn says about the principles of justice, peace and equality (or less inequality). It came across as churlish, I’m sure, to many readers on a rare day of something different.
I accept that we are a reformist paper, and within those parameters one has to get elected. But that should not mean a digging-in by, and with, the parliamentary inside-baseball Labour party whose days and ways of presenting politics like corporate management selling a product (or explaining a product fault) have just been soundly rejected by its membership. Why embed with MPs in a parliament no one trusts against the democratic vote outside it?
And anyway, what if? Who, five years ago, would have predicted Syriza’s victory in Greece or bet on Podemos taking Madrid and Barcelona, now preparing for a role in government? It’s not as though the Observer’s accumulated editorials disagree that much with Corbyn.
During Ed Miliband’s Labour, the Observer robustly questioned the health of capitalism – our columnist Will Hutton calls it “turbo-capitalism”. We urged support for a living wage and the working poor, and the likes of Robert Reich and David Simon have filled our pages with more radical critiques of capitalism than Corbyn’s.
Anyway, how much of what Corbyn argues do most voters disagree with, if they stop to think? Do people approve of bewildering, high tariffs set by the cartel of energy companies, while thousands of elderly people die each winter of cold-related diseases? Do students and parents from middle- and low-income families want tuition fees?
Do people like paying ludicrous fares for signal-failure, delays and overcrowding on inept railways? Do people urge tax evasion by multinationals and billionaires, which they then subsidise with cuts to the NHS? Post-cold war, who exactly are we supposed to kill en masse with these expensive nuclear missiles? What’s so good about the things Corbyn wants to drastically change?
Even more fundamental is the appeal to principle and morality – peace, justice and internationalism – which drove the Labour grassroots vote, and was spoken at the rally for refugees which Corbyn made his first engagement and for which this newspaper stands absolutely. Why not embrace those principles, or at least show an interest in the fact that hundreds of thousands of people just did? Which better reflects the Britain we want: Corbyn’s “open your hearts” or Cameron’s “swarm”?
The parliamentary bubble – and our editorial – calculate that we cannot fundamentally change Britain on the basis of these aspirations, even if many people yearn to. In the acceptance speech, Corbyn should have appealed beyond the party in which he is steeped; perhaps he too inhabits a different echo-chamber.
But this isn’t about Corbyn, it’s about why he’s suddenly there. And what an appalling lesson to draw: someone is overwhelmingly elected to falteringly but seriously challenge that stasis and order of things – by urging peace, justice, republic and equality – only to be evicted by the deep system into a lethal ice-storm the moment he leaves the tent, like Captain Oates, though not of his own volition.
And even if middle England is more adverse to radical politics than middle Spain or Greece, does that mean we have to align with this mainstream stasis, just because it is so? What’s the point of principles if their trade-off for power is a principle in itself? Why have principles at all?
The legal philosopher Costas Douzinas argues for a separation of words: using “politics” to describe horse-trading between parties, which feign differences but actually agree, and “the political” to describe antagonisms that really exist in society. On that basis, why start with the stasis of “politics” to approach “the political”, rather than the reverse: invoke “the political” to challenge the stasis of “politics”? Especially alongside Greece, Spain and elsewhere.
Instead of a stirring leader, which did not have to endorse Corbyn but could celebrate the spirit of the vote along with those who delivered it, we’ve left a lot of good, loyal and decent people who read our newspaper feeling betrayed.
“There’s something happening in here / What it is ain’t exactly clear”, wrote Stephen Stills in 1967. It’s a good description of where we are with all this – we don’t as yet have the map whence this came, where it’s going or even what it is.
Dave Crosby sang: “Don’t try to get yourself elected” (from a mighty number called “Long Time Gone”). Along with almost half this country, I was inclined to agree, but Corbyn’s election throws Crosby’s dictum into question, just as to cut Corbyn down would prove Crosby right. “We can change the world” sang Graham Nash. But are we only allowed to try if middle England, the media and parliament try too?
Sunday, 20 September 2015
Saturday, 19 September 2015
Jeremy Corbyn won't stop until everyone in Britain is offended
Mark Steel in The Independent
As he’s been leader for five days now, the press are calming down a bit. By tomorrow headlines will only say things like, “Cor-Bin Laden will force pets to be Muslim”, followed by an interview with 89-year-old Vera, who says: “It’s not fair because my hamster’s scared of burqas. That’s the last time I’ll vote Labour.”
The Telegraph will be even more measured, reporting: “Corbyn plans to introduce women-only gravity. Men will be left to float through space, making it harder to arrive on time for work, costing Britain £40bn.”
This could go alongside the genuine report in The Times on Monday, that Jeremy Corbyn’s neighbours “often see him riding a Chairman Mao-style bicycle”. A less thorough reporter might only mention that he rides a bicycle. Luckily this one knew the country where lots of bicycles are ridden is China, which was once ruled by Chairman Mao, which means Corbyn is planning to force us all to work in rice fields and eat dogs.
One problem with this excitement is that it’s hard to increase the hysteria when they’ve gone so wild in the first week, but they’ll rise to the challenge. By November, we’ll be told he’s forced Mary Berry to eat an Arctic roll full of blackbird sick as revenge for selling her book about scones via corporate tax-avoiders Amazon.
Then Panorama will reveal Corbyn appeared at a conference with Satan, who he described as an “old pal”; the evidence is a dream their informant had after falling asleep in a cowshed after drinking a bottle and a half of Sambuca.
You could tell how chaotic his leadership would be from the start, when he gave some important jobs in his party to people he agrees with. This provoked outrage. If he was being inclusive, instead of appointing John McDonnell as shadow chancellor, he’d have given the job to Jeremy Clarkson.
The other complaint about his Shadow Cabinet was the low number of women appointed, only 16 out of 31 rather than the half he promised.
The Sun complained of an “equality blunder”, and you can understand their frustration as they’ve always been uncompromising with their feminist demands, devoting every day’s Page 3 to poems by Mexican women’s rights campaigners, no matter how strong the protests to stop.
He didn’t even give a job to Yvette Cooper, on the grounds that she’d said she wouldn’t take it. But if he really cared about women’s equality, he’d have said “you’ll do whatever job I bloody well give you, love”, and the problem would be solved.
But none of us can have guessed the unspeakable horror to come next, when he didn’t sing the national anthem at a Battle of Britain memorial, ruining the efforts of everyone who fought in the Second World War. Commentators told us: “Those pilots did more than anyone to stop Hitler, and now Jeremy Corbyn has literally opened the cockpit of every Spitfire and smeared dog mess on the seats.”
It’s no wonder people called phone-in shows to make comments such as “I’ve taught myself to snore the national anthem, so I don’t insult the pilots during my sleep.”
It’s understandable for people to see it as an insult when someone didn’t sing “God Save the Queen” at the memorial, because the Queen played a major part in the battle, as a wing commander who shot down five enemy aircraft over Folkestone.
Even so, it’s hard to see how the national anthem is the song that most directly commemorates the RAF, so one suggestion to avoid a similar incident in future is to sing a different song at each memorial. Next year it could be “The Omen” by The Prodigy. Anyone not joining in by screaming “The writing’s on the wall” in St Paul’s cathedral will be arrested for treason.
Once again it was The Sun that seemed most furious about this lack of respect for dead servicemen. But if Corbyn gets his way it won’t even be possible to insult the armed forces, because, according to The Sun, he’ll “abolish the army”.
It didn’t make clear how he’d do that, especially when he appears at Prime Ministers’ Questions seeming mild and reasonable, reading out questions sent in from around the country. Most people seem to feel this was a healthy change, though it may be even better if he puts all the questions in a bucket and draws them out at random.
This would strengthen our democracy further. “Prime Minister, Tina from Exeter asks, who would win in a fight between Godzilla and a giant tarantula?” At first, Cameron would insist the mutant spider had no chance against a seasoned monster with wide experience of destruction, and his front bench would yell “hear hear hear” as usual. But eventually a calmer atmosphere would prevail, and Parliament would become a forum for reasonable debate. That’s when Corbyn will strike to abolish the army.
He’ll introduce a similar system, so instead of weapons, our soldiers will march to the front line of a battle, and call out to the enemy: “Alan from Doncaster has asked what are you going to do about all the fires in the city you’ve just demolished.” Then in 50 years’ time, when there’s a memorial for all our troops that are captured, he won’t even sing at it.
That’s how much of a danger he is.
As he’s been leader for five days now, the press are calming down a bit. By tomorrow headlines will only say things like, “Cor-Bin Laden will force pets to be Muslim”, followed by an interview with 89-year-old Vera, who says: “It’s not fair because my hamster’s scared of burqas. That’s the last time I’ll vote Labour.”
The Telegraph will be even more measured, reporting: “Corbyn plans to introduce women-only gravity. Men will be left to float through space, making it harder to arrive on time for work, costing Britain £40bn.”
This could go alongside the genuine report in The Times on Monday, that Jeremy Corbyn’s neighbours “often see him riding a Chairman Mao-style bicycle”. A less thorough reporter might only mention that he rides a bicycle. Luckily this one knew the country where lots of bicycles are ridden is China, which was once ruled by Chairman Mao, which means Corbyn is planning to force us all to work in rice fields and eat dogs.
One problem with this excitement is that it’s hard to increase the hysteria when they’ve gone so wild in the first week, but they’ll rise to the challenge. By November, we’ll be told he’s forced Mary Berry to eat an Arctic roll full of blackbird sick as revenge for selling her book about scones via corporate tax-avoiders Amazon.
Then Panorama will reveal Corbyn appeared at a conference with Satan, who he described as an “old pal”; the evidence is a dream their informant had after falling asleep in a cowshed after drinking a bottle and a half of Sambuca.
You could tell how chaotic his leadership would be from the start, when he gave some important jobs in his party to people he agrees with. This provoked outrage. If he was being inclusive, instead of appointing John McDonnell as shadow chancellor, he’d have given the job to Jeremy Clarkson.
The other complaint about his Shadow Cabinet was the low number of women appointed, only 16 out of 31 rather than the half he promised.
The Sun complained of an “equality blunder”, and you can understand their frustration as they’ve always been uncompromising with their feminist demands, devoting every day’s Page 3 to poems by Mexican women’s rights campaigners, no matter how strong the protests to stop.
He didn’t even give a job to Yvette Cooper, on the grounds that she’d said she wouldn’t take it. But if he really cared about women’s equality, he’d have said “you’ll do whatever job I bloody well give you, love”, and the problem would be solved.
But none of us can have guessed the unspeakable horror to come next, when he didn’t sing the national anthem at a Battle of Britain memorial, ruining the efforts of everyone who fought in the Second World War. Commentators told us: “Those pilots did more than anyone to stop Hitler, and now Jeremy Corbyn has literally opened the cockpit of every Spitfire and smeared dog mess on the seats.”
It’s no wonder people called phone-in shows to make comments such as “I’ve taught myself to snore the national anthem, so I don’t insult the pilots during my sleep.”
It’s understandable for people to see it as an insult when someone didn’t sing “God Save the Queen” at the memorial, because the Queen played a major part in the battle, as a wing commander who shot down five enemy aircraft over Folkestone.
Even so, it’s hard to see how the national anthem is the song that most directly commemorates the RAF, so one suggestion to avoid a similar incident in future is to sing a different song at each memorial. Next year it could be “The Omen” by The Prodigy. Anyone not joining in by screaming “The writing’s on the wall” in St Paul’s cathedral will be arrested for treason.
Once again it was The Sun that seemed most furious about this lack of respect for dead servicemen. But if Corbyn gets his way it won’t even be possible to insult the armed forces, because, according to The Sun, he’ll “abolish the army”.
It didn’t make clear how he’d do that, especially when he appears at Prime Ministers’ Questions seeming mild and reasonable, reading out questions sent in from around the country. Most people seem to feel this was a healthy change, though it may be even better if he puts all the questions in a bucket and draws them out at random.
This would strengthen our democracy further. “Prime Minister, Tina from Exeter asks, who would win in a fight between Godzilla and a giant tarantula?” At first, Cameron would insist the mutant spider had no chance against a seasoned monster with wide experience of destruction, and his front bench would yell “hear hear hear” as usual. But eventually a calmer atmosphere would prevail, and Parliament would become a forum for reasonable debate. That’s when Corbyn will strike to abolish the army.
He’ll introduce a similar system, so instead of weapons, our soldiers will march to the front line of a battle, and call out to the enemy: “Alan from Doncaster has asked what are you going to do about all the fires in the city you’ve just demolished.” Then in 50 years’ time, when there’s a memorial for all our troops that are captured, he won’t even sing at it.
That’s how much of a danger he is.
Imran Khan - Pakistan's Donald Trump
Pervez Hoodbhoy in The Dawn
Even his fellow Republicans have labelled him insane. But, defying the predictions of all soothsayers and political pundits, Donald Trump’s still surging popularity with Republican voters suggests that he could become America’s next president. The first step, now within reach, will be winning the Republican Party’s nomination.
Articulating the ‘mad as hell’ anger felt by many Americans towards Washington’s putatively liberal policies, Trump knows it pays to be outrageous and wickedly racist. He follows the black-hating governor of Alabama in the 1960’s, George Wallace, who would famously shout “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” at rallies. Some of Trump’s claims are breathtaking: Mexican immigrants are mostly criminals and rapists, and President Obama is a foreign-born Muslim.
An American political commentator, John Dean (of Watergate fame), describes Trump as “a near perfect authoritarian leader” with a personality type that is “intimidating and bullying, faintly hedonistic, vengeful, pitiless, exploitive, manipulative, dishonest, cheat to win, highly prejudiced, mean-spirited, militant, nationalistic, tell others what they want to hear, take advantage of ‘suckers’, specialise in creating false images to sell self, may or may not be religious.”
Made of the same stuff but packaged differently, the Trump-Khan duo has thrilled extremists.
Take away the “faintly” and this neatly fits Trump’s Pakistani counterpart, cricketer Imran Khan, who burst upon Pakistan’s political scene with his mammoth Lahore jalsa of 2011. With a lavish lifestyle and his playboy past neatly tucked away in some closet the reformed Khan promised the moon as he cavorted on the stage, loudly praying towards Makkah for success.
Khan’s support base is diverse: college-educated “burger bachas”, brigades of bejewelled begums, hysterical semi-educated youth, and wild-eyed TTP supporters. Delighting them all, he unleashes from time to time a steady stream of abuse upon his political rivals who threaten to sue him but are ultimately deterred by Pakistan’s labyrinthine court system.
Made of the same stuff but packaged differently, the Trump-Khan duo has thrilled racial and religious extremists. The former leader of the Klu Klux Klan, David Duke, declared that of all presidential candidates, Trump is “the best of the lot”. Khan received still greater appreciation. He was nominated by the TTP as their representative to last year’s (cancelled) peace talks, the reward for leading massive “peace” marches protesting American drones. Resolutely refusing to condemn any Taliban atrocity, Khan would seek to shift the blame on the US.
Worshipful followers love aggressive leaders. Trump, said to be the most abrasive politician in American history, uses barbs and insults while Khan menacingly swings his cricket bat. Use of indecent language invites no penalties. Last month, Trump crudely remarked that Fox anchor Megyn Kelly, who had aggressively confronted him in a CNN interview, had “Blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever.” Khan went yet further. From the top of his dharna container, he screamed that a panicking Nawaz Sharif had wetted his shalwar.
Why do such leaders attract followers? First, each can confidently claim that he is his own man, a top-of-his-game type. He can convincingly label political rivals as midgets, corrupt, or incompetent (Khan’s job is easier than Trump’s). The self-made Trump earned a fortune through real-estate business and now owns acres of expensive Manhattan land. His personal worth, though modest on the scale of today’s billionaires, is around $4 billion.
Khan too is self-made. He ranks as one of the world’s best cricket professionals who could bat, bowl, and captain. His cancer hospital is a model of professional management and an important public service, even if his contribution pales before that of Abdus Sattar Edhi.
A second reason: both men are unabashed narcissists. But shouldn’t this turn people off rather than on? In normal life narcissism is considered a personality disorder, but not so in politics. Exceptionally vain and self-absorbed men, who see themselves as deserving attention and power, are often the winners in political contests. Explaining this anomaly is a challenge for those who study group psychology.
A recent issue of Harvard Business Review carries an article intriguingly titled, ‘Why we love narcissists’. The author, Prof Tomas Premuzic of University College London, summarises recent research in psychology that explains how narcissists get ahead in all domains of life. Premuzic distinguishes between “productive narcissists” like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, who actually created great new industries, with “charismatic narcissists” who use charm to push personal agendas.
Charismatic narcissists, says Premuzic, are masterful impression managers. They dress to impress, disguise arrogance as confidence, and are superb social networkers. Convinced they are never wrong, they take credit whenever things go well. But when things go awry, they blame colleagues and subordinates. Premuzic notes that “It is always easier to fool others when you have already fooled yourself; it is always harder to feel guilty when you think you are innocent.”
Even with wild schemes, the charismatic narcissist can whip up enormous enthusiasm. Trump has vowed to build a wall along the US southern border with Mexico, likening it to the Great Wall of China and has even dubbed it “The Great Wall of Trump”. What he doesn’t know — and doesn’t want to know — is that even the Ming Dynasty’s 13,000-mile wall failed to keep out the Manchurians.
Khan’s ideas make even Trump’s hare-brained schemes look tame. Once I’m in power, Khan declared, I will end corruption in 19 days and terrorism in 90 days. The 19 was subsequently changed to 90; the need for an additional 71 days remained unexplained. But let’s put that aside. It’s now 887 days since Khan’s PTI took over the reins of the KP province. The end of corruption and terrorism should be nigh, right? But don’t hold your breath.
To conclude: charismatic narcissists are much hot air but very little substance. Unfortunately, they can be very dangerous. If running a country they can take it to war, waste resources, and increase internal violence. On the other hand, real leadership requires building high performance teams, emphasising altruism over egotism, and competence over confidence. Until the public understands this, it will continue inviting narcissists to the top while overlooking more reasonable alternatives.
Thursday, 17 September 2015
Databall
Big data is already reshaping on-field tactics and team selection. It may not be too long before it changes the game as we know it
Fast-bowler slayer: Rajasthan Royals' use of Brad Hodge down the order defied conventional wisdom, but it paid off © AFP
More famously Ajit Wadekar and Mohammad Azharuddin used Sachin Tendulkar to open the innings in ODIs in 1994, a move that lasted 18 years, multiple captaincies and brought India 15,310 runs and two World Cup finals. Arguably, it also paved the way for two other middle-order batsmen, Sourav Ganguly and Virender Sehwag, to open in ODIs.
Note the difference between Bharucha's explanation for the Hodge tactic and the other examples. Buchanan's explanation was based on an understanding that a specialist batsman's methods are useful against faster bowlers. Gavaskar's educated guess was down to his reading of Kapil's approach. Bradman surmised that the surer methods of specialist batsmen would yield greater results on a drier pitch. The "data", such as it was, that Wadekar and Azharuddin had to go on, had to do with Tendulkar's ability to attack the bowling, and Tendulkar's enthusiasm for the job. Bharucha had nothing to say about Hodge's technique or approach. His reasoning was based entirely on a new kind of measurement - the measurement of outcomes, based on events that had been recorded.
It would be a mistake to think that tactical choices were not based on data before the IPL or before Buchanan became Australia's coach. Data was used. It was data about technique and approach, not outcomes. It may not have been tabulated into percentages or frequency distributions or probabilities, but technique has always been based on propensities. The history of the game is littered with stories of eagle-eyed slip fielders who could see a batsman and work out his weaknesses - which good bowlers could then exploit. The use of logical inference based on observed fact to improve performance and make tactical choices is as old as the game itself. What is new is the type of data being collected.
"Moneyball", the data revolution in baseball, is about getting better value for money. As Jonah Hill's character in the movie about Oakland Athletics explains, teams have to think in terms of buying runs and outs, not players. The argument in Moneyball is an argument between two types of data: data from scouts, who observe players and reach judgements about their potential, and data about outcomes - runs, outs, walks, strikeouts and the like.
In baseball, the basic use of data about outcomes is to identify inefficiencies in the way players are valued. The returns on this approach should logically diminish with time; an inefficiency is only an inefficiency until other teams also see it as one. For example, if Mumbai Indians decided to use their deeper pockets to ensure the most favourable match-ups for as many of the 20 overs as possible, Royals would no longer have a competitive advantage. If Mumbai Indians looked at the same data as Royals, and made sure that a spinner was held back until Hodge came in to bat, they would be able to somewhat negate Hodge's effectiveness. Before long the quest to eliminate inefficiencies will merely keep teams from falling behind, instead of giving them a competitive advantage.
LA Dodgers manager Don Mattingly runs the show from the dugout, involving himself before nearly every pitch © Getty Images
This could play a big role in the kind of players that teams will select. Royals provide a glimpse into the future. Their decision to open the batting with Dravid (and later with Ajinkya Rahane) was the result of a combination of insights. The data showed that being 45 for 1 after six overs was better than being 60 for 3 at the same stage, and so Royals, according to Bharucha, "wanted someone who could hit good cricketing shots along the ground and pierce the gaps". Between 2011 and 2013, Dravid was an above-average IPL opener, scoring quickly and surely. After the Powerplay his scoring rate often dropped and his efforts to score at pace led to his dismissal far too regularly. Both Dravid and Bharucha told me that the idea of Dravid throwing caution to the wind after the sixth over, instead of trying to anchor the innings, was considered. The data suggested that it was more advantageous for Dravid to get out trying to score quickly than to develop his innings in the conventional sense after the Powerplay. In other words, it was better for Dravid to be replaced by a player who is, say, exceptionally good at hitting legspin, but not so good at other aspects of batting, or eventually by Hodge, the late-overs specialist hitter of pace.
It is possible to imagine a future where players develop their game in such hyper-specialised directions. The IPL already rewards players who are exceptionally skilled at hitting medium pace over the infield - though their game has not developed in other directions. Teams may soon try to ensure that these hyper-specialists are not used in situations that require other talents. Platooning - the idea of using specific players against specific opponents - is a time-honoured practice in baseball. Many baseballers focus on enhancing specific skills for specific situations - like left-hand relief pitchers going up against left-hand batters late in the innings.
Compared to Bharucha, Buchanan met with less success in implementing his ideas at Kolkata Knight Riders. His attempt to rope in a fielding coach with a baseball background (John Deeble) wasn't as successful as his path-breaking use of Mike Young with the Australian side. During his two-year stint as director of cricket in New Zealand, Buchanan says, a couple of economists used a huge data set to produce an "in-game analysis which gave information to the coach and team what tactics should be employed on the next delivery or next few deliveries to control the game, and thereby influence the probability of winning". The idea never took off and was resisted by coaches and players.
Buchanan makes the point about how a data-based approach to on-field strategy requires players to be accountable for each of their decisions. If the coaches don't know exactly what a bowler is trying to do with a given delivery, it is impossible for them to know whether the bowler's plan was successful (irrespective of the outcome). "If we [the team and coaching staff] know what the set play looks like, then we are all tuned to how well that is executed." Buchanan says players are resistant to this kind of accountability, and perhaps also to giving up autonomy.
The central question teams need to tackle is whether or not a coach has a legitimate role as a tactician when a game is in progress. The architecture of cricket grounds sets up many constraints. During T20 games players sit in dugouts - an innovation borrowed from American sport and football. However, in baseball and football, the dugout serves a specific purpose: the coach or manager runs the game from there. Not only does Don Mattingly, the coach of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, instruct his players before nearly every pitch, he also has an elaborate system of signs that is constantly updated so that it remains secret.
Peter Moores was criticised for being data-driven but so are many teams and coaches © Getty Images
In cricket, the relationship between those off the field and the active players has traditionally been distant. When Bob Woolmer tried to get Hansie Cronje to wear a earpiece he was not merely ahead of his time, he was trying to subvert the architecture of the sport. Cricket has traditionally had a different approach to accountability compared to baseball or football. This is no surprise. Baseball and football have been played for profit for far longer than cricket has, and consequently are mature big-money sports. It is unlikely that baseballers and footballers - often young men with little professional experience - are going to be left to their own devices when so much money is at stake. Every play has to be managed and every effort has to be made to get the most out of every play, or at least, teams need to be seen to be getting the most out of every play. Cricket may eventually get there but it will need both a change in attitudes, and there will need to be a means for coaches to get involved in each on-field decision.
The effectiveness of the use of cricket data is limited by how often new information can be conveyed to players and also by how often players can be substituted during a game. In baseball only nine players are in the game at any time, but each team's bench holds a further 16, of whom about 12 are usually available for use.
The use of match data in cricket is still in its infancy. Here is an example of software used by Cricket Australia (CA). It is developed by a company called Fair Play, and many cricket teams (franchise and international) use this system.
© Fair Play
Currently data is entered manually, in real time. The time available to make a record of each delivery is limited to the time it takes for the bowler to deliver the next one. As CA's Team Performance Information Manager Brian McFadyen observed in an email, it is much harder to capture data when spinners are bowling than when fast bowlers are bowling. A total of 166,006 balls were delivered in men's international cricket alone in 2014. Collecting data for 60 or 70 variables for each delivery would take about 5500 hours, assuming that it takes, on average, two seconds to record each variable. As you can imagine, this is an expensive and labour-intensive proposition.
Cricket might go the way of Major League Baseball's Statcast, a tracking technology used by many baseball franchises and now also available on broadcast. According to the MLB website, Statcast "collects the data using a series of high-resolution optical cameras along with radar equipment that has been installed in all 30 Major League ballparks. The technology precisely tracks the location and movements of the ball and every player on the field at any given time."
The data is mined using algorithms on the raw video data, and hence a large amount of data is captured for every single pitch. It is not only used by franchises for analysis but also in broadcasts to help fans develop a better understanding.
The use of data promises to change not only how cricket is played but also how it is watched and analysed. It is possible to foresee new types of television shows presenting data-based insights, and new types of fan engagements, like fantasy leagues, enhanced by the use of data. Perhaps conventional wisdom about risk-taking and probabilities of success will be refined. Today's television broadcast is littered with statistics like WASP, the Batting Index, the Bowling Index and the Pressure Index. What is missing is a critical mass of experts who are competent enough to discuss the merits of these measures and educate fans on how they work.
The first decade of franchise-based cricket saw the language and grammar of long-form cricket being adopted wholesale to describe the new game. Spinners, we were told in the early days, were deceiving batsmen the same way they did in Tests. This despite the fact that batsmen were often of a different mindset facing spin in T20s than in the middle of a Test. It is now clear that the 20-over game has little in common with the longer versions, and perhaps the use of data to maximise each player's productivity will provide the impetus for a new language.
The larger question is how this will affect the way the game is played. Buchanan's dream of using data and technology to systematically develop ambidextrous players - polymath super-cricketers - may well have to give way to developing thousands of players who loft the ball better than Tendulkar ever could, but can't play the short ball at all. Instead of super-cricketers, big data might produce mini-cricketers run by super-managers.
We have already seen how things can go pear-shaped for super-managers. Peter Moores had two stints as England's head coach. Kevin Pietersen, the England captain during Moores' first stint, would later ridicule him for constantly emphasising metrics. In his autobiography Pietersen suggested that the central effect of all the data input was to irritate the players. Moores' second stint ended farcically when an innocent comment, after England were eliminated from the 2015 World Cup, was used as proof of his unhealthy obsession with data. The subtext was obvious: sport is played with heart and brawn, so who does this guy think he is to assume numbers are important? For fans humiliated by a big defeat, this type of chauvinism is too delicious to resist. Data - facts - would just complicate their catharsis.
At the same time, data is central to every team's preparation for matches. In an interview to the Cricket Monthly, Ricky Ponting observed that matters have reached a point now where every player has a laptop, and every player has to study before games. Whatever Moores' critics might say, every team pores over vast amounts of data and studies their opponents.
What remains to be seen is the effect of big data on cricket's evolution. Will the overall quality of the game improve? Will the coach emerge as match-manager and chief tactician? Will tomorrow's average cricketer be fitter, stronger, more skilful, more versatile than today's? Or, despite the best intentions of coaches, captains and players, will the data ensure that new types of tail-enders proliferate?
Time will tell.
KARTIKEYA DATE in Cricinfo | SEPTEMBER 2015
In 2012, Rajasthan Royals signed Brad Hodge, one of a generation of high-quality Australian cricketers who spent years on the fringes of an all-time great side. Given Hodge's pioneering T20 efforts, above and beyond his first-class and Test experience, this was a major signing by IPL standards.
Conventional wisdom held that Hodge should bat early in the innings. But Royals used Hodge deep in the order, preferring lesser local players at Nos. 3, 4 and 5. Observers were perplexed. ESPNcricinfo's S Rajesh wrote that their decision defied logic because Hodge had better overall numbers than those who batted ahead of him.
Zubin Bharucha, Royals' director of cricket, explained the rationale behind Hodge batting at No. 6 or even 7 in an email interview. He said Royals had "nobody better to play the role against the fast bowlers, and with those last four-five overs deciding the course of a majority of games, wouldn't you want the player having the best stats against fast bowling to take on the responsibility for that phase?"
According to Bharucha, they found that Hodge had done brilliantly against pace (a strike rate of 157) but relatively poorly against spin (strike rate 115). Why use him at No. 3 when he would almost certainly have to face the full spells of the opposition's specialist spinners? Even if a spinner was bowling late in the innings, Rahul Dravid, then Royals' captain, told me in a Skype interview, the instructions to Hodge were to avoid taking chances, play the over out if need be, and save himself to attack the faster bowlers. Hodge's batting position was incidental. The point was to use him against fast bowling at the end of the innings. Data showed that this would be a better use of Hodge than the more conventional approach.
In 2012, Rajasthan Royals signed Brad Hodge, one of a generation of high-quality Australian cricketers who spent years on the fringes of an all-time great side. Given Hodge's pioneering T20 efforts, above and beyond his first-class and Test experience, this was a major signing by IPL standards.
Conventional wisdom held that Hodge should bat early in the innings. But Royals used Hodge deep in the order, preferring lesser local players at Nos. 3, 4 and 5. Observers were perplexed. ESPNcricinfo's S Rajesh wrote that their decision defied logic because Hodge had better overall numbers than those who batted ahead of him.
Zubin Bharucha, Royals' director of cricket, explained the rationale behind Hodge batting at No. 6 or even 7 in an email interview. He said Royals had "nobody better to play the role against the fast bowlers, and with those last four-five overs deciding the course of a majority of games, wouldn't you want the player having the best stats against fast bowling to take on the responsibility for that phase?"
According to Bharucha, they found that Hodge had done brilliantly against pace (a strike rate of 157) but relatively poorly against spin (strike rate 115). Why use him at No. 3 when he would almost certainly have to face the full spells of the opposition's specialist spinners? Even if a spinner was bowling late in the innings, Rahul Dravid, then Royals' captain, told me in a Skype interview, the instructions to Hodge were to avoid taking chances, play the over out if need be, and save himself to attack the faster bowlers. Hodge's batting position was incidental. The point was to use him against fast bowling at the end of the innings. Data showed that this would be a better use of Hodge than the more conventional approach.
A journeyman Ranji Trophy batsman could work on one aspect of his attacking play to the exclusion of all others and become useful for his franchise as a hyper-specialist
This strategy seemed to work during Hodge's second season with Royals. He remained unbeaten seven times in 14 innings and scored 293 runs in 218 balls. Interestingly Hodge played for two other T20 sides between 2012 and 2014 - Melbourne Stars and Barisal Burners. Both used him in one of the top three spots and he did just as well in terms of strike rate and batting average. However, the success of Royals' experiment lay not just in Hodge's numbers but in the success of other players and of the team as a whole.
Royals was not the first side to make such a tactical choice. Don Bradman famously reversed his batting order on a drying pitchin Melbourne in the 1936-37 Ashes. Sunil Gavaskar has written in One Day Wonders about holding back Kapil Dev while Lance Cairns was bowling in the semi-final of the 1985 World Championship of Cricket. Gavaskar felt Kapil was better off taking on the pace of Richard Hadlee rather than the deceptively tempting mediums of Cairns. Kapil made 54 in 37 balls and saw India home.
There have also been more systematic tactical choices. During the 1995-96 Australian domestic season, John Buchanan, then the Queensland coach, used Jimmy Maher and Martin Love to take on fast bowlers in the last ten overs. As Buchanan explained in an email interview, "I wanted skilled batsmen who could also run well between wickets to take advantage of this period. It did mean we might sacrifice some scoring possibilities earlier, but I backed our top order as well as the fact that we chose some batting allrounders who could bat higher."
This strategy seemed to work during Hodge's second season with Royals. He remained unbeaten seven times in 14 innings and scored 293 runs in 218 balls. Interestingly Hodge played for two other T20 sides between 2012 and 2014 - Melbourne Stars and Barisal Burners. Both used him in one of the top three spots and he did just as well in terms of strike rate and batting average. However, the success of Royals' experiment lay not just in Hodge's numbers but in the success of other players and of the team as a whole.
Royals was not the first side to make such a tactical choice. Don Bradman famously reversed his batting order on a drying pitchin Melbourne in the 1936-37 Ashes. Sunil Gavaskar has written in One Day Wonders about holding back Kapil Dev while Lance Cairns was bowling in the semi-final of the 1985 World Championship of Cricket. Gavaskar felt Kapil was better off taking on the pace of Richard Hadlee rather than the deceptively tempting mediums of Cairns. Kapil made 54 in 37 balls and saw India home.
There have also been more systematic tactical choices. During the 1995-96 Australian domestic season, John Buchanan, then the Queensland coach, used Jimmy Maher and Martin Love to take on fast bowlers in the last ten overs. As Buchanan explained in an email interview, "I wanted skilled batsmen who could also run well between wickets to take advantage of this period. It did mean we might sacrifice some scoring possibilities earlier, but I backed our top order as well as the fact that we chose some batting allrounders who could bat higher."
Fast-bowler slayer: Rajasthan Royals' use of Brad Hodge down the order defied conventional wisdom, but it paid off © AFP
More famously Ajit Wadekar and Mohammad Azharuddin used Sachin Tendulkar to open the innings in ODIs in 1994, a move that lasted 18 years, multiple captaincies and brought India 15,310 runs and two World Cup finals. Arguably, it also paved the way for two other middle-order batsmen, Sourav Ganguly and Virender Sehwag, to open in ODIs.
Note the difference between Bharucha's explanation for the Hodge tactic and the other examples. Buchanan's explanation was based on an understanding that a specialist batsman's methods are useful against faster bowlers. Gavaskar's educated guess was down to his reading of Kapil's approach. Bradman surmised that the surer methods of specialist batsmen would yield greater results on a drier pitch. The "data", such as it was, that Wadekar and Azharuddin had to go on, had to do with Tendulkar's ability to attack the bowling, and Tendulkar's enthusiasm for the job. Bharucha had nothing to say about Hodge's technique or approach. His reasoning was based entirely on a new kind of measurement - the measurement of outcomes, based on events that had been recorded.
The central question teams need to tackle is whether or not a coach has a legitimate role as a tactician when a game is in progress
It would be a mistake to think that tactical choices were not based on data before the IPL or before Buchanan became Australia's coach. Data was used. It was data about technique and approach, not outcomes. It may not have been tabulated into percentages or frequency distributions or probabilities, but technique has always been based on propensities. The history of the game is littered with stories of eagle-eyed slip fielders who could see a batsman and work out his weaknesses - which good bowlers could then exploit. The use of logical inference based on observed fact to improve performance and make tactical choices is as old as the game itself. What is new is the type of data being collected.
"Moneyball", the data revolution in baseball, is about getting better value for money. As Jonah Hill's character in the movie about Oakland Athletics explains, teams have to think in terms of buying runs and outs, not players. The argument in Moneyball is an argument between two types of data: data from scouts, who observe players and reach judgements about their potential, and data about outcomes - runs, outs, walks, strikeouts and the like.
In baseball, the basic use of data about outcomes is to identify inefficiencies in the way players are valued. The returns on this approach should logically diminish with time; an inefficiency is only an inefficiency until other teams also see it as one. For example, if Mumbai Indians decided to use their deeper pockets to ensure the most favourable match-ups for as many of the 20 overs as possible, Royals would no longer have a competitive advantage. If Mumbai Indians looked at the same data as Royals, and made sure that a spinner was held back until Hodge came in to bat, they would be able to somewhat negate Hodge's effectiveness. Before long the quest to eliminate inefficiencies will merely keep teams from falling behind, instead of giving them a competitive advantage.
LA Dodgers manager Don Mattingly runs the show from the dugout, involving himself before nearly every pitch © Getty Images
This could play a big role in the kind of players that teams will select. Royals provide a glimpse into the future. Their decision to open the batting with Dravid (and later with Ajinkya Rahane) was the result of a combination of insights. The data showed that being 45 for 1 after six overs was better than being 60 for 3 at the same stage, and so Royals, according to Bharucha, "wanted someone who could hit good cricketing shots along the ground and pierce the gaps". Between 2011 and 2013, Dravid was an above-average IPL opener, scoring quickly and surely. After the Powerplay his scoring rate often dropped and his efforts to score at pace led to his dismissal far too regularly. Both Dravid and Bharucha told me that the idea of Dravid throwing caution to the wind after the sixth over, instead of trying to anchor the innings, was considered. The data suggested that it was more advantageous for Dravid to get out trying to score quickly than to develop his innings in the conventional sense after the Powerplay. In other words, it was better for Dravid to be replaced by a player who is, say, exceptionally good at hitting legspin, but not so good at other aspects of batting, or eventually by Hodge, the late-overs specialist hitter of pace.
It is possible to imagine a future where players develop their game in such hyper-specialised directions. The IPL already rewards players who are exceptionally skilled at hitting medium pace over the infield - though their game has not developed in other directions. Teams may soon try to ensure that these hyper-specialists are not used in situations that require other talents. Platooning - the idea of using specific players against specific opponents - is a time-honoured practice in baseball. Many baseballers focus on enhancing specific skills for specific situations - like left-hand relief pitchers going up against left-hand batters late in the innings.
When Bob Woolmer tried to get Hansie Cronje to wear an earpiece he was not merely ahead of his time, he was trying to subvert the architecture of the sport
This trend could create new opportunities in cricket. A journeyman Ranji Trophy middle-order batsman, who will never challenge Rahane for a slot in India's Test team, could work on one aspect of his attacking play to the exclusion of all others and become useful for his franchise as a hyper-specialist. The logical conclusion of Hodge's story would be for Royals to leave him out of the XI against a team playing no fast bowlers, even if he was in fantastic form. Instead they might select a local batsman who is extremely skilled at hitting spinners. The data might eventually show that a $35,000 local player is better than a $350,000 international in a big final.
Developing such hyper-specialists runs counter to generations of coaching wisdom. This tension came through in my interview with Bharucha, who was keenly aware of the different emphases involved in training a Test player and training an IPL specialist. Royals say that their ambition is to produce cricketers for India. But they need to balance the necessity of training specialists - to make the most of their limited resources - against producing well-rounded Test cricketers. Bharucha, a former first-class batsman who learnt his cricket under old-school coaches in Mumbai, points to the development and ambitions of Rahane, Sanju Samson, Stuart Binny and Karun Nair (who hit a triple-hundred in the 2015 Ranji final) as all-format players. "The way we teach and instruct," Bharucha wrote, "will always be to tighten technique and play quality cricket shots, even though it is T20 we are talking about. I feel coaching has always got to be something far deeper and must include the overarching goal of improving the quality of cricket played around the world."
The cerebral coach: John Buchanan's method revolved around making players accountable for their decisions on the field © AFP
Bharucha is aware of the contradiction. On the one hand Royals take a radical approach to batting. As he explained with regard to Hodge, "There are no batting numbers at Royals, only an over in which a batsman could potentially go in."
On the other hand, Bharucha also said, "At Royals one always weighs all of this up against the promotion of Indian talent, as year on year we look to shape the life and career of someone who could be a valuable contributor to the country. It's never just a shallow decision of who should bat where."
Winning in the IPL may well require cold-blooded platooning and the pursuit of hyper-specialists. But it would be a mistake to ignore the way longer currents of history shape the work of coaches and tacticians, whatever the data might say.
Acombination of technology and vast sums of money on offer has played a big part in creating the basis for a data-centred approach to tactics and specialisation. Some, like Bharucha and Buchanan, see data in match play and coaching as a boon. Buchanan visualises the role of the cricket coach evolving into one of a tactician and match-manager. But like all change, progress has been interrupted by older conventions and attitudes.
This trend could create new opportunities in cricket. A journeyman Ranji Trophy middle-order batsman, who will never challenge Rahane for a slot in India's Test team, could work on one aspect of his attacking play to the exclusion of all others and become useful for his franchise as a hyper-specialist. The logical conclusion of Hodge's story would be for Royals to leave him out of the XI against a team playing no fast bowlers, even if he was in fantastic form. Instead they might select a local batsman who is extremely skilled at hitting spinners. The data might eventually show that a $35,000 local player is better than a $350,000 international in a big final.
Developing such hyper-specialists runs counter to generations of coaching wisdom. This tension came through in my interview with Bharucha, who was keenly aware of the different emphases involved in training a Test player and training an IPL specialist. Royals say that their ambition is to produce cricketers for India. But they need to balance the necessity of training specialists - to make the most of their limited resources - against producing well-rounded Test cricketers. Bharucha, a former first-class batsman who learnt his cricket under old-school coaches in Mumbai, points to the development and ambitions of Rahane, Sanju Samson, Stuart Binny and Karun Nair (who hit a triple-hundred in the 2015 Ranji final) as all-format players. "The way we teach and instruct," Bharucha wrote, "will always be to tighten technique and play quality cricket shots, even though it is T20 we are talking about. I feel coaching has always got to be something far deeper and must include the overarching goal of improving the quality of cricket played around the world."
The cerebral coach: John Buchanan's method revolved around making players accountable for their decisions on the field © AFP
Bharucha is aware of the contradiction. On the one hand Royals take a radical approach to batting. As he explained with regard to Hodge, "There are no batting numbers at Royals, only an over in which a batsman could potentially go in."
On the other hand, Bharucha also said, "At Royals one always weighs all of this up against the promotion of Indian talent, as year on year we look to shape the life and career of someone who could be a valuable contributor to the country. It's never just a shallow decision of who should bat where."
Winning in the IPL may well require cold-blooded platooning and the pursuit of hyper-specialists. But it would be a mistake to ignore the way longer currents of history shape the work of coaches and tacticians, whatever the data might say.
Acombination of technology and vast sums of money on offer has played a big part in creating the basis for a data-centred approach to tactics and specialisation. Some, like Bharucha and Buchanan, see data in match play and coaching as a boon. Buchanan visualises the role of the cricket coach evolving into one of a tactician and match-manager. But like all change, progress has been interrupted by older conventions and attitudes.
The use of logical inference based on observed fact to improve performance and make tactical choices is as old as the game itself. What is new is the type of data being collected
Compared to Bharucha, Buchanan met with less success in implementing his ideas at Kolkata Knight Riders. His attempt to rope in a fielding coach with a baseball background (John Deeble) wasn't as successful as his path-breaking use of Mike Young with the Australian side. During his two-year stint as director of cricket in New Zealand, Buchanan says, a couple of economists used a huge data set to produce an "in-game analysis which gave information to the coach and team what tactics should be employed on the next delivery or next few deliveries to control the game, and thereby influence the probability of winning". The idea never took off and was resisted by coaches and players.
Buchanan makes the point about how a data-based approach to on-field strategy requires players to be accountable for each of their decisions. If the coaches don't know exactly what a bowler is trying to do with a given delivery, it is impossible for them to know whether the bowler's plan was successful (irrespective of the outcome). "If we [the team and coaching staff] know what the set play looks like, then we are all tuned to how well that is executed." Buchanan says players are resistant to this kind of accountability, and perhaps also to giving up autonomy.
The central question teams need to tackle is whether or not a coach has a legitimate role as a tactician when a game is in progress. The architecture of cricket grounds sets up many constraints. During T20 games players sit in dugouts - an innovation borrowed from American sport and football. However, in baseball and football, the dugout serves a specific purpose: the coach or manager runs the game from there. Not only does Don Mattingly, the coach of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, instruct his players before nearly every pitch, he also has an elaborate system of signs that is constantly updated so that it remains secret.
Peter Moores was criticised for being data-driven but so are many teams and coaches © Getty Images
In cricket, the relationship between those off the field and the active players has traditionally been distant. When Bob Woolmer tried to get Hansie Cronje to wear a earpiece he was not merely ahead of his time, he was trying to subvert the architecture of the sport. Cricket has traditionally had a different approach to accountability compared to baseball or football. This is no surprise. Baseball and football have been played for profit for far longer than cricket has, and consequently are mature big-money sports. It is unlikely that baseballers and footballers - often young men with little professional experience - are going to be left to their own devices when so much money is at stake. Every play has to be managed and every effort has to be made to get the most out of every play, or at least, teams need to be seen to be getting the most out of every play. Cricket may eventually get there but it will need both a change in attitudes, and there will need to be a means for coaches to get involved in each on-field decision.
The effectiveness of the use of cricket data is limited by how often new information can be conveyed to players and also by how often players can be substituted during a game. In baseball only nine players are in the game at any time, but each team's bench holds a further 16, of whom about 12 are usually available for use.
The use of match data in cricket is still in its infancy. Here is an example of software used by Cricket Australia (CA). It is developed by a company called Fair Play, and many cricket teams (franchise and international) use this system.
© Fair Play
Currently data is entered manually, in real time. The time available to make a record of each delivery is limited to the time it takes for the bowler to deliver the next one. As CA's Team Performance Information Manager Brian McFadyen observed in an email, it is much harder to capture data when spinners are bowling than when fast bowlers are bowling. A total of 166,006 balls were delivered in men's international cricket alone in 2014. Collecting data for 60 or 70 variables for each delivery would take about 5500 hours, assuming that it takes, on average, two seconds to record each variable. As you can imagine, this is an expensive and labour-intensive proposition.
Cricket might go the way of Major League Baseball's Statcast, a tracking technology used by many baseball franchises and now also available on broadcast. According to the MLB website, Statcast "collects the data using a series of high-resolution optical cameras along with radar equipment that has been installed in all 30 Major League ballparks. The technology precisely tracks the location and movements of the ball and every player on the field at any given time."
The data is mined using algorithms on the raw video data, and hence a large amount of data is captured for every single pitch. It is not only used by franchises for analysis but also in broadcasts to help fans develop a better understanding.
The use of data promises to change not only how cricket is played but also how it is watched and analysed. It is possible to foresee new types of television shows presenting data-based insights, and new types of fan engagements, like fantasy leagues, enhanced by the use of data. Perhaps conventional wisdom about risk-taking and probabilities of success will be refined. Today's television broadcast is littered with statistics like WASP, the Batting Index, the Bowling Index and the Pressure Index. What is missing is a critical mass of experts who are competent enough to discuss the merits of these measures and educate fans on how they work.
Instead of ambidextrous players - polymath super-cricketers - big data might produce mini-cricketers run by super-managers
The first decade of franchise-based cricket saw the language and grammar of long-form cricket being adopted wholesale to describe the new game. Spinners, we were told in the early days, were deceiving batsmen the same way they did in Tests. This despite the fact that batsmen were often of a different mindset facing spin in T20s than in the middle of a Test. It is now clear that the 20-over game has little in common with the longer versions, and perhaps the use of data to maximise each player's productivity will provide the impetus for a new language.
The larger question is how this will affect the way the game is played. Buchanan's dream of using data and technology to systematically develop ambidextrous players - polymath super-cricketers - may well have to give way to developing thousands of players who loft the ball better than Tendulkar ever could, but can't play the short ball at all. Instead of super-cricketers, big data might produce mini-cricketers run by super-managers.
We have already seen how things can go pear-shaped for super-managers. Peter Moores had two stints as England's head coach. Kevin Pietersen, the England captain during Moores' first stint, would later ridicule him for constantly emphasising metrics. In his autobiography Pietersen suggested that the central effect of all the data input was to irritate the players. Moores' second stint ended farcically when an innocent comment, after England were eliminated from the 2015 World Cup, was used as proof of his unhealthy obsession with data. The subtext was obvious: sport is played with heart and brawn, so who does this guy think he is to assume numbers are important? For fans humiliated by a big defeat, this type of chauvinism is too delicious to resist. Data - facts - would just complicate their catharsis.
At the same time, data is central to every team's preparation for matches. In an interview to the Cricket Monthly, Ricky Ponting observed that matters have reached a point now where every player has a laptop, and every player has to study before games. Whatever Moores' critics might say, every team pores over vast amounts of data and studies their opponents.
What remains to be seen is the effect of big data on cricket's evolution. Will the overall quality of the game improve? Will the coach emerge as match-manager and chief tactician? Will tomorrow's average cricketer be fitter, stronger, more skilful, more versatile than today's? Or, despite the best intentions of coaches, captains and players, will the data ensure that new types of tail-enders proliferate?
Time will tell.
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