11 February 2004

Moles’ Worthy Idea

KENYA STILL HOPEFUL OF TEST STATUS

Kenya’s coach, Andy Moles, has come up with an idea worthy of serious consideration by international cricket authorities. Watching Bangladesh and Zimbabwe suffering repeated embarrassments on tours doesn’t encourage people to come out and spend their money, which is the point of holding them. England’s tour to Bangladesh was treated scandalously by the British broadcast media, which shows little respect for one of the up-and-coming Test nations.

The coming series between Bangladesh and Zimbabwe should prove instructive for comparison purposes. Neither side look liked threatening England last year, but could they provide a tight series between themselves? If so, the idea of a "Serie B" in Test cricket might do more to help the development of these cricketing nations than repeated drubbings at the hands of even the weaker tradtional Test-playing nations.

The key to broadening the international audience for cricket lies in ensuring lots of experience playing the game, preferably with good media coverage among the interested parties. Getting beaten over and over, often embarrassingly, may build character, but it is not going to encourage the youngsters of Zimbabwe and Bangladesh to take up the game.

2 January 2004

The Tipping Point?

Happy New Year!

The Test series between Australia and India has provided marvellous drama to the end of the World Cup year. The Fourth Test started today with the series poised 1-1 after a rain-affected Brisbane test was followed by a remarkable victory by India in Adelaide and Australia’s triumph in Melbourne.

India’s win was remarkable for two reasons. One was the astonishing fact that this was the first time in ten years that Australia had found themselves behind in a home test series. If any single statistic could measure the dominance that an extremely talented Australian side has achieved in recent years, this might be it. However, the other reason, and the one that set alarm bells ringing here at Cricketing Sabermetrics, was that the batsmen’s friend of Adelaide is a difficult ground for visiting teams to win at. During England’s tragi-comic tour of Australia last winter (or summer, depending on which side of the Equator one stands), we assembled some data about the different Australian grounds.

Ground	Home win	Touring wins	Draws	Tourists’ Winning Pct.	Runs/wicket	Runs/over
Brisbane	26	8	10	.182	31.59	3.07
Adelaide	30	15	16	.246	35.11	3.07
Perth	18	7	6	.226	32.30	3.20
Melbourne	52	28	15	.295	29.51	2.87
Sydney	47	27	16	.300	29.16	2.77

Adelaide is not the most likely place for a touring side to pull off a victory. In fact, if the Australians don’t win, there was more likelihood of a draw than a tourist’s win. (A fact also true of Brisbane.) However, one of the keys to India’s victory might be indicated by that average runs per wicket figure of 35.11. Adelaide as a ground favors the batsmen, and India have a formidable batting order, one that rivals those of Australia and South Africa for being the best in the world. Let’s look at their Innings Averages for the series after three tests:

With four of their six specialist batsmen averaging over 50, this Indian side has so far shown that it can always rely on somebody to get a big score in this series. Tendulkar’s average is a shocker, another element in a sorry year for the star batsman. At the other end of the order, however, we see the one big flaw in this Indian side, which is that its tail, in the absence of Harbhjan Singh, never looks likely to wag.

The other key to India’s success is provided when we look at some bowling figures for Australia:

With part-timer Katich leading the averages, Australia’s injury-hit bowling has been hard-pressed to contain the Indian bats. Gillespie, Bracken, and Williams have provided decent economy rates, and Lee and MacGill have taken some wickets, but normally the Australians can rely on two of the seamers getting an average under 30 (normally McGrath with some spectacular figure under 25 and either Gillespie or Lee). This hasn’t happened, and MacGill is not quite in the Shane Warne class.

All this underlines just how reliant the Australian attack was on McGrath and Warne. The suspension of the latter, and injury to the former, take away the main props that sustained Australia’s total dominance of the Test cricket scene during the last ten years. Nor has Australia’s batting looked so grand, either. Here’s their top 6:

Ponting 105.67; Hayden 59; Martyn 41.4; Katich 37.75, Langer 34.17; Waugh 29.4

Adding those averages up equals 307. The Indian top 6 total 288. Nineteen runs is tight. But the Indian top 6 shows a better spread of averages. If Ponting can be held to half his average, at the price of Dravid at half his average, India narrows the gap to 7. That’s a disproportionate effect that represents India’s opportunity. Furthermore, the bowling line-up selected by Australia – Lee, Gillespie, Bracken, MacGill, plus Katich – works out at a par score in the 325-350 range, clearly within reach of this Indian batting order.

Australia have come to rely, when playing tough opposition, on astonishing performances by three or four cricketers. Furthermore, during Steve Waugh’s declining years his team has never looked entirely comfortable when put under the slightest pressure – perhaps these Australians are too used to relatively easy victories. Getting the pressure on them is the hard part, but a team with India’s batting depth can manage to do that. A serious risk of losing the series might rattle these Australians enough that they will be content to escape with a draw, which would be a tremendous moral victory in India’s favor.

One of the buzz expressions in recent years has been the Tipping Point – that stage in history when dramatic changes occur following a sequence of small ones. It could be that the familiar landscape of cricket during the last decade, with a superpower Australia in front by a considerable length, is about to change. We could be about to enter a multipolar world that will see India and South Africa battling Australia for the title of World’s Best Cricket XI. If that does happen, then India’s 2003-4 tour of Australia will have been the Tipping Point.