Hitting Against the Spin: How Cricket Really Works

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Here are some other quotes that were quite revealing, but to understand the true context, you should read the book. Chesterton used the story to illustrate his principle that you should not be allowed to remove a rule or a tradition unless and until you fully understand the reasons why it was first put in place, and all the effects that its presence has (5). Now this sounds obvious, but England were expected to do well in the 5 World Cups between 1999 and 2015, yet were never in the top three teams for any of these metrics! They changed things going into the 2019 World Cup, and were the number 1 team for the three metrics, with the highest run rate, best win percentage, and most squad experience, and went on to win the World Cup. They found that if you looked at three metrics in the years preceding a World Cup, they were strong predictors of how well a team would do at the World Cup. These three metrics were run rate (runs scored per over) in the 2 years before the World Cup, winning percentage in the 2 years before and total number of matches each of the players had played. Humility, doubt, nuance, opening ourselves to the challenge, admitting the paradox of duality, these are necessary tools (171).

Some of the content that follows is pretty technical, and there were a few passages I struggled with, but that says more about me than about the way the book is written. An example looks at the importance, or not, of bowlers maintaining a good length as opposed to a full length. The ability that the authors now have to record every detail of every delivery makes this sort of examination possible. It has come far too late to have any impact on the way I play the game of course, but it will alter the way I watch it and, more importantly, the judgments I come to about what I see. Analysis is about making the invisible visible,” Leamon explains. “The analogy I always use is cameras. Being able to slow things down and freeze frames enables a coach to make better decisions, but it doesn’t do the coaching for him.”This Diagram Shows How Some Spinners May Try To Land The Ball Outside Leg Stump & Spin The Ball Across You Beware of Fielders Placed Close To The Bat The forward press is basically a small forward movement of the front foot that is made just before the spinner delivers the ball. As well as moving your front foot forwards, you should lean forwards slightly over your front knee. This gets your bodyweight moving forwards towards the ball. In my opinion, this is the best position you can get yourself in before you receive a spinning delivery. And yet it’s still great, just because this is so massively unlike most sports books. What if it wasn’t about teamwork, or inspiring coaching or captainship? What if it was just about understanding what the data tells us and then doing that? What are all the different sorts of ways that data can be used to play, coach and manage the game differently, and what happens when you use it in that way? A monk adopted a cat, but the cat would always distract all of the monks while meditating. So they tethered the cat before evening meditation every day. However, over time this became tradition, so when the cat passed away, they went and got a new cat, and also tethered that cat before evening meditation. When you’re in a battle with a spin bowler, it’s important to not allow them to settle into a rhythm of bowling exactly where they want to. Spinners love nothing more than being able to bowl their line and lengths and land ball after ball in the same spot, while a batsman plays defensively. The worst thing for a spinner to bowl against is a batsman that takes calculated risks and puts them under pressure. This makes it harder for them to find a bowling rhythm!

Data democratizes truth. It makes us all, perhaps not equal, but closer to equal in the validity of our thoughts. It allows to tell right from wrong, insightful from mistaken… The data is never enough on its own. But expert insight buttressed by objective fact has a far better chance of being truth than myth and story.” (365) If you’re batting and you see fielders being placed close to you, I’d recommend trying to play with ‘soft hands’. This basically means that you don’t force your hands towards the ball. Instead, you try to play passively and allow the ball to hit your bat. Playing in this way means that if you do make a mistake, the ball is less likely to carry to a fielder! I also knew that both authors were heavily invested in statistics and analysis. Never forgetting the fearsome struggle I had as a teenager to pass ‘O’ Level physics I have always tended to steer clear of anything scientific, and that was another factor that put me off.The book refers to these two juxtaposed ideas, which explore whether something that has been perceived wisdom for a long time is true or not, the names come from two stories: Spoiler Alert Note: The quotes below are directly from the book in case you are planning to read the book first. Embed from Getty Images 1. Tethered Cats and Chesterton’s Fence What it is? The stuff I’ve just explained is hard to do! It takes a lot of practice, but reading my Ebook first will give you a lot of helpful pointers! If you want to become a very successful batsman and move up through the ranks of the sport, then you’re going to have to learn how to do this. Take A Few Deliveries To Get Yourself Comfortable It is similar when we are analysing or collecting data in any area of work, which has not been studied before. Will the data prove any current ideas to be a tethered cat or a fence?

One test of how well written any book on this sort of subject is how it goes about attempting to explain the mysteries of swing bowling and, more particularly, reverse swing. For those of us old enough to recall when Pakistan’s seamers were branded as cheats Leamon and Jones explain succinctly why they were anything but. Ben Jones, an analyst at Cricviz, and Nathan Leamon, England’s analyst with a math degree from Cambridge. put together this revolutionary book. In their own words, “Michael Lewis wrote Moneyball: The Art of the Winning”, book about the data revolution at Oakland A’s. It’s one of the most influential books ever written about sport, and sparked a wave of change that left very few sports in the world untouched.” (316).This and many other lessons are set out in his new book Hitting Against The Spin, which seeks to explain some of the game’s hidden patterns and overlooked trends. Why India produces relatively few left-handed batsmen (largely because spin is a bigger threat in the early overs). Why Nasser Hussain was (statistically) right to bowl first at Brisbane in 2002. And why the frequent incantations for fast bowlers to “just pitch it up” often do more harm than good. The rise of left handers and why India doesn't produce enough of them was quite insightful, and so was the discussion of swing, line, length, and the vagaries, beauty, and relevance of spin in general and wrist spin in particular in the slam bang age of T20 It is a defensive tactic – they will position plenty of fielders on the leg side and try to frustrate you.

We are all loss averse, genetically programmed to be, and straying from the accepted path carries a twofold risk, firstly the increased failure rate of the innovation, and secondly the increased criticism and loss of standing that will accompany any failure (72). – Shooting 3 points, running on 4th down, reverse sweep.”

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The pattern of World Cup winning teams - top 2 in batting, top 2 in win percentages in the years leading to the final, and experience (a core that has played 80+ matches) - and how England were topping these going into their fairytale run in 2019 Sometimes in the world of data analysis and data science, we can be keen to find the subversive idea that flips perceived wisdom on its head. Yet sometimes, it is just about finding really obvious things to measure and making sure that they are being done well. The idea being that you shouldn’t remove a rule or tradition unless you understand why it was first put in place. Zubin Barucha, ‘and so they’re playing game theory too, and trying to push you up. So the strategy going into the auction was very simple – we have to spend ninety percent of our money on eleven players and then just wing it from there (334). – On Ben Stokes RR 2018 auction