Crucket

Last day of the Aus–SA series: 314 runs required, 8 (or so) wickets in hand. Nice!

In one of those rare moments in my life I am hoping for an Australian win. That way I get to enjoy both Australia losing the series and South Africa suffering a turn-around defeat. How cynical of me.

Mostly though, I want Australia to win because Ponting’s declaration was so sporting. It was aggressive, but also risky. It put a big premium on winning the test over drawing it, even at the risk of being whitewashed. It also puts the onus on him to get a winning performance out of his bowlers and fielders. Great stuff. Just the sort of attitude we want to see in Australians.

There is a potential little revolution brewing in the lead-up to the ICC board meeting at the end of the month. One of the topics that will be discussed at that meeting is a world test championship.

Now, there already exists a test championship. It’s basically the naff ICC rankings. While Australia are nominally champions (today at least), they have nothing to show for it. And who knows how much faith anyone has in the ICC rankings anyway.

The ICC are proposing putting in place a more formal championship. It is hard to know exactly what form the championship will take. I have tried searching for the ICC’s proposal, but there doesn’t seem to be anything definite on the web. It appears however that it will take the form of a round of three-test series amongst the test-playing nations over about four years, gaining points, with the top-ranked teams playing off in semi-finals and the championship final.

The championship will replace the future tours programme, which expires in 2012. The FTP is a shambles at the moment. You can blame the FTP for the splatter pattern of two-test series in the annual schedule and for the many superfluous mismatches crammed in amongst the tours that everyone actually wants to be playing. And certain countries seem to treat their FTP commitments as little more than suggestions anyway. However, the FTP has been a critical framework for international cricket since it was introduced way back whenever. Without it we may not even have a cricket community. I doubt Sri Lanka would be where they are now if it weren’t for the regular tours guaranteed under the FTP. And India too for that matter – for all their current strength and ability to dictate the international schedule, it wasn’t long ago that they were pretty mediocre and not a fun place to tour. New Zealand in particular has really benefited from the FTP. Any country with bit of fat in their schedule would no doubt be quite happy to trim a New Zealand series off if they weren’t obligated to tour under the FTP. I suspect NZ would have barely played the Windies at all during their prime, for example, which might have been good for our record, but not for our history. So while the FTP definitely needs a revamp, but it has to stay in place in some form. The test championship looks like it could fit the bill.

A four-year long tournament with potentially a month-long final seems ridiculous at first glance and possibly antithetical to the character of test cricket. But it doesn’t take much looking to see that this system has much to recommend it. I’m not entirely convinced about the semis and final, though they may be necessary to the overall package and give the whole tournament a focus. However, I’m am quite excited about the idea of tying all test series together. There are two big advantages to an on-going test championship:

1. It gives the individual test series a context. There are currently several trophies played for between countries. However, I would guess that most people would have difficulty naming any of these trophies besides the Ashes. Most match-ups between countries are played for nothing more than bragging rights for that single series. I think head-to-head trophies are a good idea and I wish more was made of them. However, by tying each test series into an overall contest makes the result of one test series important for the next series against your next opponent, as it is worth points towards your championship standing.
2. It makes every test series important. Many test series these days seem to be a waste of time from beginning to end. I’m talking largely about Bangladesh of course, but some uncharitable people might think the same about series involving New Zealand. If these series were worth championship points however then they would take on some significance. It is perhaps a bit mercenary to suggest that test series with forgone conclusions are worth playing simply because of the free championship points for the stronger team, but at least it will force the stronger teams to actually play the weaker teams.

There are naturally numerous disasvantages to the tournament. Ideally, each country is going to have to fit 18 home and away test series within four years (or 16 if Zimbabwe is not included), plus time for the semis and finals (whether they are in them or not). Which is more than four series a year, all of them of three tests (or more perhaps). That would be a hard enough schedule to keeep to, but doesn’t leave time for any non-championship series. Scheduling the semis and finals will also be difficult as it is likely that the qualifying teams won’t be known until the last pool series. These are just details though and can surely be dealt with. Richard Boock seems to think that there is significant opposition to the proposal however.

So look out for the report from the ICC meeting. It could be interesting.

The prosed additional test in the India tour faces the problem of poor light in April. Could a solution be to play it as a day/nighter? The ICC is okay with day/night tests as long as an appropriate ball is available. And it sounds like the recently trialled pink ball may be an option.

It sounds like an additional test this season is on the cards. India are scrambling to fill the gap in their schedule caused by their pulling out of their tour of Pakistan. They are negotiating with Sri Lanka to visit for a short ODI series and are also suggesting to NZC that they would like to squeeze in another test against New Zealand, which would make it a three-test series, turning it from a sham series to a real contest. Adding an extra test to the end of the test series would push it to mid-April. The last time this was tried, when Sri Lanka’s 04/05 series had to be rescheduled, it became borderline farcical as play at the Basin had to be abandoned around 5pm as the RA Vance stand shadow reached the pitch.

I wonder if there is a stadium they could schedule it at that doesn’t have any shadow-casting structures at the wrong part of the ground.

The other option is to bring the whole tour forward by a week. There is a massive gap in our schedule after the Chappel–Hadlee in February, but that would require rescheduling five ODIs and the 20-20. Or they could wrap the test series around the ODI series for a lark.

Four overs out and the Windies need 10 an over. Touch and go you’d normally think, but considering the last proper game we had was a 20-20, 10 an over wasn’t really going to be a problem.

I’ve been having some thoughts regarding which countries are the best to score runs in. It’s not an easy thing to look at however, as it is not easy to disentangle the runs you get in a country from the runs you score against a country’s team. (For example, I’ve always believed it is harder to score runs on New Zealand pitches due to their lack of pace and tendency to seam; however, it is relatively easier to score against NZ bowlers, due to their lack of pace and reliance on seam. Do these factors cancel, making it as easy to score runs in New Zealand as anywhere else, masking the difficulty of our pitches? Or are our pitches more benign and our bowlers more dangerous than we have been led to believe?)

I think this is an important thing to get a handle on, as the runiness (or wicketiness) of a country’s pitches is a factor in the averages of that country’s players.

As a first step in analysing this, I have taken a look at the home and away averaged averages of each of the test-playing nations, both bowling and batting. To get a figure representing the disparity in home and away performances, I have taken the ratio of the home and away performances.

This table doesn’t actually tell us much about the differences in the respective home and away conditions. It only tells us who tours better. But it is quite instructive in that respect.

The big surprise really is the fact that South African batsmen score better away from home than at home. The same is true of West Indian bowlers, though to a lesser extent. Overall, this would make South Africa the best tourists, though Australia, New Zealand, England and the West Indies are all very good. Zimbabwe and the Asian teams however have large disparities between their home and away records, with Sri Lanka’s being particularly stark. Sri Lanka’s batting and bowling performances at home are the best of all the countries, whereas their away records are simply bad. They also have the worst home/away win/loss ratio ratio (they win more than two games at home to one win abroad, but lose twice as many away as they do at home).

So how is it that South Africa have achieved what no other team has managed in 16 years, beating Australia at home? The record over the past couple of years shows just how all-conquering they have been.

South Africa last toured Australia in 05/06, when they were beaten 0-2. Starting from the next season however, they have beaten India at home, Pakistan home and away, New Zealand and West Indies at home, Bangladesh a couple of times and England in England. Their one drawn series was against India in India, which was drawn 1-1, though it should be noted that it did feature a match where South Africa bowled India out for 76.

They also had four of the top 10 run scorers of 2008 and three of the top wicket takers.

I’ve been searching for a West Indian voice on the current series, but there seems to be a dearth of West Indies’ blogs.

The only one I have found is West Indies Cricket Blog, which has a promising title, but unfortunately hasn’t been updated since November, and then just to talk about boots.

If there are any West Indians reading, please tell me where I can read a real West Indian perspective.

It is remarkable enough that Australia has not lost a series at home for 16 years, but surprising also that this is South Africa’s first series win in Australia. They join a select group; only four teams have now beaten Australia at home. The West Indies have, of course, during their period of dominance. England too, naturally, in the see-sawing Ashes clashes. And the other team that has been able to beat Australia at home? New Zealand, 1985/86.

Considering the momentousness of what has occurred and who was on the receiving end of it, I am surprised Australia’s loss to South Africa hasn’t elicited a bit more gloating around the blogosphere. Suave, bless him, had a spray at the Aussies, but he would have said the same thing regardless of the result. Apart from Suave, everyone else seems to be acting terribly politely; the epoch-breaking implications of this series have barely been touched on. Damith talks about it, but quietly through statistics. His prediction: “Gazillion, number of blogs that will have a field day writing about how Australia lost and how crap they are,” seems pretty far off.

But Crucket is one of those blogs Damith is talking about. Quite frankly and forthrightly, we are delighted that Australia lost. As a kiwi, we obviously can’t get enough of Australia losing. And as a cricket fan, we are overjoyed that the top of the cricket pyramid has been levelled off, even if it has little impact for New Zealand.

Sadly, the Australian blogs are also largely avoiding commenting on the series loss. We’d like to see a bit of bellyaching or blame shifting. Instead we have Cricket with Balls getting philosophical and being gracious, and rather taking the fun out of the gloating.