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"I tried to block his email address but the coach of the Australian team was unblockable"
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Vijay Sharma
Jan 31, 2012, 1:33:48 AM1/31/12
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Nice one by MacGill...he tore into Buchanan here -
http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/hollywood-makeover-cant-disguise-the-myopia-of-statistics-boffins-20120128-1qn13.html
In the plane on the way to Perth for the Big Bash final, I watched
Moneyball, a movie about an American baseball manager who puts
together a team capable of mixing it with the big boys on a shoestring
budget.
The core principle of the movie is computer analysis and statistics.
Baseball games are broken down into component parts and players are
selected based on their statistical suitability to each of those
parts.
Many people who watch this film will probably walk away thinking that
Brad Pitt's character was a genius for having the foresight to embrace
this approach; some might walk away thinking he just got lucky by
having a better computer nerd than the other Major League Baseball
teams. I suspect far too many will see the film and see it as a
vindication of all things IT in sport.
Australian cricket has been using computer analysis for more than a
decade. Images of John Buchanan sitting in front of a computer screen
still wake me up at night in a cold sweat. You probably all think he
was looking at detailed breakdowns of players and their scoring zones
but, for the most part, he was simply forwarding those tired old chain
email jokes. I tried to block his email address but the coach of the
Australian team was unblockable.
I played a Test match in Melbourne one year against England and, as
happened to me far too often, I was turning the ball plenty without
having a great deal of control. We had taken some early wickets and
had plenty of runs on the board but England were mounting something
that resembled a comeback and all of us were starting to get a little
concerned. I was confident, however, that provided I could land the
ball in the right place more than once or twice an over there was
enough turn and bounce available for me to break the partnership and
possibly go on to win the Test.
At the tea interval, John shuffled up to me with a pile of papers in
his hand. He said that he had some observations to make about my
bowling and the Englishmen's scoring patterns that he had extracted
from his laptop.
He said to me that he felt the key to breaking this partnership was by
keeping the scoring rate to a minimum. Good point, as both English
batsmen were stroke players and not the sort of guys to enjoy or
survive too long without hitting the ball over the fence. I started to
think that perhaps this one-on-one wouldn't be too painful after all.
Unfortunately, he then pulled out the printouts. One of them was a map
of where my deliveries had pitched and the other was a corresponding
document showing how many runs had been scored from each of those
deliveries.
John excitedly told me that whenever I pitched the ball on off stump,
the batsman wasn't scoring. He generally took half an hour to make a
point and, considering the tea break at a Test match is only 20
minutes, we were already walking back onto the field at the time.
I turned to him and replied that the reason they weren't scoring when
I bowled that particular delivery was because the ball had been
turning half a metre and they couldn't actually reach it.
I thanked him kindly for his input and asked him whether or not he
thought I should concentrate instead on getting them out. His blank
face indicated that he would have to go back to the laptop before he
could respond.
Incidentally, I did start putting them in the right place
occasionally, picked up my only five-wicket haul at the MCG and we
went on to win the Test. Computers have a huge role to play in
cricket, all sport for that matter, but remember the basic principles
of the game will always be of paramount importance.
Moneyball is a great film but the stats that matter in cricket are
simple. Make more runs than the opposition and bowl them out twice.
http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/hollywood-makeover-cant-disguise-the-myopia-of-statistics-boffins-20120128-1qn13.html
In the plane on the way to Perth for the Big Bash final, I watched
Moneyball, a movie about an American baseball manager who puts
together a team capable of mixing it with the big boys on a shoestring
budget.
The core principle of the movie is computer analysis and statistics.
Baseball games are broken down into component parts and players are
selected based on their statistical suitability to each of those
parts.
Many people who watch this film will probably walk away thinking that
Brad Pitt's character was a genius for having the foresight to embrace
this approach; some might walk away thinking he just got lucky by
having a better computer nerd than the other Major League Baseball
teams. I suspect far too many will see the film and see it as a
vindication of all things IT in sport.
Australian cricket has been using computer analysis for more than a
decade. Images of John Buchanan sitting in front of a computer screen
still wake me up at night in a cold sweat. You probably all think he
was looking at detailed breakdowns of players and their scoring zones
but, for the most part, he was simply forwarding those tired old chain
email jokes. I tried to block his email address but the coach of the
Australian team was unblockable.
I played a Test match in Melbourne one year against England and, as
happened to me far too often, I was turning the ball plenty without
having a great deal of control. We had taken some early wickets and
had plenty of runs on the board but England were mounting something
that resembled a comeback and all of us were starting to get a little
concerned. I was confident, however, that provided I could land the
ball in the right place more than once or twice an over there was
enough turn and bounce available for me to break the partnership and
possibly go on to win the Test.
At the tea interval, John shuffled up to me with a pile of papers in
his hand. He said that he had some observations to make about my
bowling and the Englishmen's scoring patterns that he had extracted
from his laptop.
He said to me that he felt the key to breaking this partnership was by
keeping the scoring rate to a minimum. Good point, as both English
batsmen were stroke players and not the sort of guys to enjoy or
survive too long without hitting the ball over the fence. I started to
think that perhaps this one-on-one wouldn't be too painful after all.
Unfortunately, he then pulled out the printouts. One of them was a map
of where my deliveries had pitched and the other was a corresponding
document showing how many runs had been scored from each of those
deliveries.
John excitedly told me that whenever I pitched the ball on off stump,
the batsman wasn't scoring. He generally took half an hour to make a
point and, considering the tea break at a Test match is only 20
minutes, we were already walking back onto the field at the time.
I turned to him and replied that the reason they weren't scoring when
I bowled that particular delivery was because the ball had been
turning half a metre and they couldn't actually reach it.
I thanked him kindly for his input and asked him whether or not he
thought I should concentrate instead on getting them out. His blank
face indicated that he would have to go back to the laptop before he
could respond.
Incidentally, I did start putting them in the right place
occasionally, picked up my only five-wicket haul at the MCG and we
went on to win the Test. Computers have a huge role to play in
cricket, all sport for that matter, but remember the basic principles
of the game will always be of paramount importance.
Moneyball is a great film but the stats that matter in cricket are
simple. Make more runs than the opposition and bowl them out twice.
99.94
Jan 31, 2012, 7:05:37 AM1/31/12
to
"Vijay Sharma" <viz.nirva...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:b7a6d91c-3dba-4798...@n7g2000pbd.googlegroups.com...
> Nice one by MacGill...he tore into Buchanan here -
>
>
> http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/hollywood-makeover-cant-disguise-the-myopia-of-statistics-boffins-20120128-1qn13.html
>
(snip rest)
>
>
> http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/hollywood-makeover-cant-disguise-the-myopia-of-statistics-boffins-20120128-1qn13.html
>
A great article by MacGill and sums up the most over-rated coach in sporting
history.
alvey
Feb 1, 2012, 6:17:38 AM2/1/12
to
On Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:33:48 -0800 (PST), Vijay Sharma wrote:
> Nice one by MacGill...he tore into Buchanan here -
Yessss. That's a popular pastime of the NSV attack chihuahuas.
> Nice one by MacGill...he tore into Buchanan here -
The facts are;
Buchanan's most prominent critics are fat, egomaniac leg-spinners who's
combined iq is in inverse proportion to their opinion of themselves.
Buchanan revolutionised coaching. There's no team in the world now that
doesn't use computer analysis.
Buchanan has the best record of any coach in history. And all the petty
sniping from flawed dickheads like Warne & MacDill can't touch that.
(Illuminatingly, many of the snipers who sneer at JB for being 'lucky'
because of the talent of his team blithely also manage to simultaneously
laud Bargearse & Selfish for being great captains. They've defined Stoopid)
Footnote: As I tapped this out Warner slogged a right-handed 6 in tonight's
T20 and the Nein commontaters have had about 300 orgasms about it. When JB
idly hypothesised once many years ago that the future cricketer could be
ambidextrous this was used by his enemies as more proof of his madness.
snip McDrivell
alvey
in Bne, beginning to think that 2012 is the Year of the Troll-Dragon.
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