Cricket 35: Bat first, bat often

[john]

30 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I'm also guessing that if the umpire had ruled correctly, it means Stokes would have been sent back to the non-striker's end and he would not have faced the penultimate ball.

Yeah, that should’ve happened as well.

A lot of news pages are quoting the MCC’s umpire e-learning platform which is very clear in its interpretation of this situation.  Not that I personally think the law is particularly ambiguous either but is is kind of difficult to parse.  Anyway, it definitely should’ve been 5.

[williamjm]

49 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I'm also guessing that if the umpire had ruled correctly, it means Stokes would have been sent back to the non-striker's end and he would not have faced the penultimate ball.

New Zealand might not have minded conceding 4 runs if it kept Stokes off strike.

[Davrum]

17 hours ago, ljkeane said:

I agree boundaries isn’t a particularly good tie breaker, they should have just had another super over or left it as a tie, but I do think it’s a better one than wickets in limited overs cricket. Take yesterday the difference in wickets was Archer having a swipe at the ball because losing his wicket didn’t matter and Rashid getting run out because losing his wicket didn’t matter. In fact Santner really should have risked the same last ball for the Kiwis.

I mean, you say they took the actions they took "because wickets didn't matter" but the hypothetical is that wickets do matter. Would Archer have made the same decision knowing his wicket mattered? Doesn't player behaviour modify in response to rule modification? 

Fun stuff to consider.

And do you make the same argument in favour of boundaries over wickets against the Duckworth-Lewis system, which gives significant weight to wickets and considers boundaries meaningless?

 

[The Anti-Targ]

4 minutes ago, williamjm said:

New Zealand might not have minded conceding 4 runs if it kept Stokes off strike.

I think before that freak event, NZ was backing itself to win regardless of who would be on strike. 7 runs in 2 balls means you have to score a boundary, and if the boundary isn't a 6 then at least 3 runs off the other ball. Most of the time you'll be backing the fielding side to win in that situation.

[The Anti-Targ]

17 hours ago, ljkeane said:

I agree boundaries isn’t a particularly good tie breaker, they should have just had another super over or left it as a tie, but I do think it’s a better one than wickets in limited overs cricket. Take yesterday the difference in wickets was Archer having a swipe at the ball because losing his wicket didn’t matter and Rashid getting run out because losing his wicket didn’t matter. In fact Santner really should have risked the same last ball for the Kiwis.

That was a complete brain explosion. last ball of a limited overs innings you try to get bat on ball no matter what. I can understand Santner's instinctive, test match, reaction to a short pitched ball going down leg. But in that moment Santner should not have allowed his lizard brain to dictate his action.

Also I wanted to say that the English quicks gave a masterclass on using the slow delivery, 2 (or 3?) wickets plus a bunch of dot balls. But what was a little annoying about it was the commentators basically correctly predicting slow balls before the bowler started his run up, but the Batsmen seeming to be always caught surprised by them. I think only once was a slower ball correctly read and dispatched for runs.

[6649er]

ICC should immediately change the rule for overthrows deflected off  a batsman. Ball should be dead as soon as it hits the batsman. The batting side does this anyway. Umpire's call to signal dead ball so that the run counts.

[Davrum]

That and the goofy boundary rule.

I mean, when the scores are tied and you're rewarding the team with the most boundaries you're also more than likely rewarding the team with the most dot balls, which makes less than zero sense.

Yet one more indicator for how meaninglessly arbitrary that rule is.

[Mosi Mynn]

9 minutes ago, Davrum said:

That and the goofy boundary rule.

I mean, when the scores are tied and you're rewarding the team with the most boundaries you're also more than likely rewarding the team with the most dot balls, which makes less than zero sense.

Possibly one of the reasons behind it is to reward positive batting and discourages nurdling.  It is arbitrary - and I wish someone who made the decision would explain  the rationale behind it.

As to changing the rule for a ball deflected off a batter - it should be down to the umpire's discretion, but isn't this to stop fielders throwing the ball at batters?

[Jeor]

20 hours ago, Paxter said:

ETA: The thing that annoys me now is that I will shortly be rooting for England in the Ashes. Not sure how I am going to do those mental acrobatics, but there is no way I want to see Smith and Warner with the urn. Sorry Jeor. Justice. Vengeance. Fire and Blood. 

Hah. The funny thing is that I tend to side with Australia when they are playing in England, usually because they are truly underdogs in that setting (and also because it's nice to silence the naturally boisterous English crowd). And this World Cup business makes me want to "get" England more now!

Playing in Australia doesn't have either of those earlier two factors so it's likely with the next Ashes series I'll be more of a neutral.

Ideally Australia would win the Ashes with Warner getting a continual run of ducks until he is dropped from the team forever. But to be honest I think the Ashes is going to be one way traffic, my prediction is a 3-1 win to England. Our batting is just so unsettled and we are very susceptible to the moving ball.

[Paxter]

7 hours ago, Jeor said:

Hah. The funny thing is that I tend to side with Australia when they are playing in England, usually because they are truly underdogs in that setting.

I dunno about true underdog. They aren't comparable to, say, Sri Lanka or Pakistan visiting Australia (zero series wins in test history) or New Zealand visiting India. Four consecutive (and often crushing) wins in England during the 90s/early 2000s have quite a bit of historical weight. Plus, at some venues (like Lords or the Oval), they are probably favourites. 

In a nutshell: Australia are only true underdogs at Trent Bridge! I expect you to be rooting for England at Lords (where Australia won by a mere 405 runs in 2015)...

ETA: Just on Ashes selection, things are heating up on the Australian side. Head and Wade made centuries against a good England Lions attack (Sam Curran got 6-for); it's going to be tough to overlook Wade this time. Patterson and Burns both missed out which doesn't help their cause. 

[williamjm]

19 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Also I wanted to say that the English quicks gave a masterclass on using the slow delivery, 2 (or 3?) wickets plus a bunch of dot balls. But what was a little annoying about it was the commentators basically correctly predicting slow balls before the bowler started his run up, but the Batsmen seeming to be always caught surprised by them. I think only once was a slower ball correctly read and dispatched for runs.

For all the attention he got for how fast he could bowl, it may have been Archer's slower balls that were more important to the World Cup victory. Of course, they may have been more effective because the batsmen knew how fast he could bowl.

2 hours ago, Paxter said:

ETA: Just on Ashes selection, things are heating up on the Australian side. Head and Wade made centuries against a good England Lions attack (Sam Curran got 6-for); it's going to be tough to overlook Wade this time. Patterson and Burns both missed out which doesn't help their cause. 

Cricinfo is reporting Wade may have picked up an injury in the match after a blow on the elbow.

[Paxter]

39 minutes ago, williamjm said:

Cricinfo is reporting Wade may have picked up an injury in the match after a blow on the elbow.

Merely a flesh wound! He's a tough cookie.

What do English fans think of Archer and Roy for the test XI? It would mean that the ODI and test teams are converging for the first time in quite a while, at least since Anderson and Broad quit ODIs. 

[williamjm]

1 hour ago, Paxter said:

What do English fans think of Archer and Roy for the test XI? It would mean that the ODI and test teams are converging for the first time in quite a while, at least since Anderson and Broad quit ODIs. 

Roy could hardly do worse than most of the other openers England have tried in recent years, although Alex Hales did demonstrate before that limited overs form doesn't necessarily translate into Test form.

I think Archer does look a good prospect for the Test side, although it will be tough to decide on a bowling attack if everyone was fully fit. England will probably be a bit way about overloading him, I wonder if we might see some squad rotation of some of the fast bowlers.

Before the Ashes there is the Test against Ireland. Apparently most of the World Cup bowlers are going to be rested, so it will probably be Broad and Sam Curran leading the bowling attack, I'm not sure who else they will pick.

[ljkeane]

2 hours ago, williamjm said:

For all the attention he got for how fast he could bowl, it may have been Archer's slower balls that were more important to the World Cup victory. Of course, they may have been more effective because the batsmen knew how fast he could bowl.

I think it's also that he doesn't seem to put a lot of effort into his faster balls. He just sort of ambles in, goes through his action and the ball comes out in excess of 90 mph. Given that it's not just hard to pick the slower balls, if you're playing for a slow bouncer it's probably quite hard to pick the faster one and since in that case you're getting a ball hitting you in the head at 90 mph that's probably a bit distracting.

2 hours ago, Paxter said:

What do English fans think of Archer and Roy for the test XI? It would mean that the ODI and test teams are converging for the first time in quite a while, at least since Anderson and Broad quit ODIs. 

I think Roy will be in the team. Archer will be in the mix and I expect he'll probably play at some point but Woakes is a really good bowler in English conditions and Wood was excellent last time they played so there's some competition there. I think they'll probably rotate the bowlers a bit.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

On 7/14/2019 at 1:16 PM, Which Tyler said:

Never seen a super over

I had never even heard about them until last night. I was reading an article recapping 2019 so far, and the author does make a good point that this has been one of the best years in sport ever.

 

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

I had never even heard about them until last night. I was reading an article recapping 2019 so far, and the author does make a good point that this has been one of the best years in sport ever.

 

I went to bed at 2:30AM after New Zealand's innings had ended, and the last thing I thought about for the game was "I wonder what happens if there's a tie?" And then I wake up 6 hours later and I find out. So I'm pretty sure I made the tie happen with the power of my mind. I wanted to know what would happen and the universe gave me my answer. Unfortunately I wasn't specific enough in my thought. When I thought "I wonder what happens if there's a tie?" I should have specified "at the end of England's innings". So the universe decided to answer the question of what happens with an absolute tie, which I think most people would have preferred not to find out by having it play out in the real world. So, sorry about that.

[Mosi Mynn]

What would have happened if England and New Zealand had had the same number of boundaries?  Would it have come down to number of sixes?

[The Anti-Targ]

News reports saying Stokes asked the umpire not to count the boundary on that overthrow situation, but the umpire didn't agree. Cricket etiquette syas you don;t run overthrows if a throw to the stumps hits you and gets deflected into a runnable gap. So Stokes was right to ask for the 4 overthrow runs not to be counted. But the rules allow for overthrows even if the ball hits the batsman on the way to the stumps, so if the ball reaches the boundary the rules say the runs count. I don't imagine there's a rule allowing the batsman to request the umpire to basically deduct runs. So the umpire was right to refuse Stokes' request.

3 hours ago, Mosi Mynn said:

What would have happened if England and New Zealand had had the same number of boundaries?  Would it have come down to number of sixes?

I suppose it might then go to wickets lost. And if that's even I'd want the next deciding factor to be whoever won the head to head in the round robin stage, or whichever team had the better NRR over the entire competition (i.e. including the semi-finals). I think after maybe 3 or 4 factors somehow freakishly all come out tied at the end there would be a coin toss. Because our culture demands that there be only one.

[The Marquis de Leech]

4 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Because our culture demands that there be only one.

And that bugs me, to be honest. Sharing a title may be a bit too gentlemanly, a bit too old-fashioned for the modern world, but screw it. We're talking a sport where the "honourable draw" is an inherent part of the mythos of the game.

[Mosi Mynn]

12 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

News reports saying Stokes asked the umpire not to count the boundary on that overthrow situation, but the umpire didn't agree. Cricket etiquette syas you don;t run overthrows if a throw to the stumps hits you and gets deflected into a runnable gap. So Stokes was right to ask for the 4 overthrow runs not to be counted. But the rules allow for overthrows even if the ball hits the batsman on the way to the stumps, so if the ball reaches the boundary the rules say the runs count. I don't imagine there's a rule allowing the batsman to request the umpire to basically deduct runs. So the umpire was right to refuse Stokes' request.

This is why I particularly enjoy any England New Zealand encounter - both teams are just so lovely and decent.

Quote

I suppose it might then go to wickets lost. And if that's even I'd want the next deciding factor to be whoever won the head to head in the round robin stage, or whichever team had the better NRR over the entire competition (i.e. including the semi-finals). I think after maybe 3 or 4 factors somehow freakishly all come out tied at the end there would be a coin toss. Because our culture demands that there be only one.

I agree.