Exasperating Wallpapers…..

Cricinfo recently introduced cricket/cricketer themed wallpapers, which like the vast majority of this poorly christened creation, defy common sense. If i wanted to look at look at a great side on picture of Ian Botham poised in delivery stride, why would i want it labeled “Ian Botham”, in various sizes and handwritings? I can understand Cricinfo putting their own name on the wallpaper, because that is probably the point of posting wallpapers in the first place. However, wouldn’t anyone who puts Ian Botham on their desktop know he’s Ian Botham?

One Tendulkar Wallpaper is particularly ridiculous – it has a picture of Tendulkar in his training clothes and another of him executing a rasping drive…… all astride a sea of India fans at some cricket ground! Theres a superb sepia Ashes, which is ruined by the “Ashes 2006-07″ dog tag across the front.

It probably comes down to some bizarre branding idea, but as a wallpaper, it is something that no self-respecting cricket fan is likely to use. Wallpapers are the online equivalent of the superb Star Posters that Sportstar used to have (and probably still has) in its issues. Mid-day and other newspaper publications issued posters with commemorative issues. I have one of the great man playing a lofted straight drive – the still head is distinctive even in the photograph. If you look at that picture, it has Mid-day branding on it, it even has something like Master Blaster written on it, but thats un-obtrusively placed – it isnt across the leg-guards.

Those were nicer posters, probably because Sportstar and Mid-day didn’t have the facility for endlessly tinkering with perfectly good photographs in some image editing software – reducing colourful, beautifully captured spectators to a pastel fudge…. giving cricketers a ridiculous halo. They weren’t able to modify and copy paste names at will – turning them in all sorts of directions and messing up the picture.

There are plenty of pictures in their image gallery which would make excellent wallpapers – Such as this one, or this one, or this……..

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Mapping Test Match Progress – I The Ashes 2006-07 Tests at Brisbane and Adelaide

I developed a very simple (not simplistic) method of mapping the progress of a cricket match some time ago. I used it to map One Day games, like this one in the Malaysian triangular series, and have used the principle development which makes this method possible in my Test and ODI ratings.

I write runs and wickets in terms of points. The run average for a Test match is the total runs scored divided by the total wickets fallen. 10 runs make 1 point, therefore 1 wicket is the run average divided by 10. A test match is said to progress with the fall of each wicket. The total points scored by each team is calculated at the fall of each wicket. This is essentially the state of the test match at that point in the test match.

The graphs reveal the extent of Australian dominance at Brisbane. They also reveal that England were in a similarly strong position early in the Australian first innings at Adelaide.

Several important conclusions can be drawn from graphs like these. Conclusions about competitiveness, conclusions about the story of the match. All the twists and turns become apparent. Below is a graph of a closely contest test match consisting of 4 completed innings, the lowest of which was 238 and the highest 286. The final result was a 12 run win for Pakistan.

Competitiveness can be visually assessed by determining the number of times the lines of each team cross. Surges, partnerships, batting collapses, trends etc. can also be visually assessed. In the Chennai Match, the two surges are Afridi’s century and Tendulkar’s century, both of which threatened to break the deadlock, before the spectacular collapse at the end (revealed in the graph as well), sealed Indias fate. All in all, this seems to be a robust method, which i have used in my ratings as well as here.

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A Long weekend for England…..

I am writing this on the evening of Thanksgiving the traditional harvest festival in North America. England have begun their Ashes campaign down under inauspiciously (normally, i would have said, Australia have begun their campaign to regain the Ashes in great style, with their captain leading from the front). Ricky Ponting has smashed yet another huge century to lead Australia to a typical 427/4 at lunch on the second day. With Steve Harmison starting the series poorly, as Ian Chappell noted, England are in a lot of trouble. I am among those who believe that Englands 2005 Ashes victory had to do with Serendipity and the Law of Averages, more than any of the cricket played by either side in that series. Given how Australia have begun in this series, England are in for a long Thanksgiving holiday weekend, and a long southern summer. It is unlikely that Glenn McGrath will trip over a cricket ball again.

As things stand, England have to do something that has never been done before, beat Australia in a series in Australia when Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne have both been available to play in all the Test matches. Australia have not lost a home Test series in 14 years. The last time they lost was against the West Indians of 1992-93. The only series Australia have lost when McGrath and Warne have both been available to play was in 2001 in India.

It remains to be seen how Englands batting line up for this Test – Strauss, Cook, Pietersen, Collingwood and Bell, none of whom have played a Test match in Australia before, shape Englands reply. If England are to be competitive, their first batting innings suddenly becomes very important, especially in the light of Australias emphatic statement in the first 4 sessions at Brisbane. Australias top 4 in this series, by contrast have played 355 Tests between them, scored about 28500 Test runs with 92 centuries. And they are followed by Michael Hussey and Michael Clarke (both of whom would walk into any Test side in the world), and Adam Gilchrist. Gilchrist shouldn’t really count, because hes been out of form and averages only 49 in Test cricket, inspite of having had a poor couple of years with the bat.

Quite a contrast huh.. Len Hutton, the first professional to captain England in Test Cricket, and one of the 3 English captains (along with Illingworth and Gatting) to lead successful Ashes campaigns in Australia in the last 60 years (Brearley doesn’t count because his victory came in a Packer affected series in 1978-79, when England beat Australia 5-1 in Australia. The next year the Packer Australians were back, and Brearley’s England were hammered 3-0 in a 3 match series, a series which wasn’t played for the Ashes, but, you know – sort of puts things in perspective), said that to beat Australia in Australia, you have to be 25% better than the Australians.

Do you seriously see England being 25% better than these Australians?

I don’t.

I suspect that this will invite the usual “game of glorious uncertainties”, “stranger things have happened” cliches, but those cliches still suggest that an English victory is, at the outset a “glorious uncertainty” or a “strange thing”.

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