Sports reporters and commentators just love statistics. They probably like the certainty of numbers. A score of 100 is better than a score of 10. Black and white. No greys.
Of course, some sports are riddled with extreme statistics. Major Leage Baseball (MLB) in the US is a prime example. In no other sport have I come across the blatant abuse of statistics. Here is a an example, totally hypothetical, but highly representative of baseball commentary on television:
"The pitcher has a 0.25 ERA against switch-hitters batting left-handed at this particular ground during the month of July, when the temperature was so-and-so degrees and my mother baked her famous cookies."
What is the sample size on such an average? One? Two? Can we even call it a sample?!!
Back to cricket, the topic of this post. When people talk about strong teams such as Australia or South Africa, the law of averages is often thrown out as a desperate attempt at hope. Australia has been winning a lot of 5-day matches of late, so they are due for a loss. Ricky Ponting has scored enough runs for the year, so there is a good chance that he will fail soon. With the Indian team, the law of averages operates on a much shorter time frame: from day to day, within the same 5-day match!
How many times have we seen our team play extremely well on day 1, and then squander it all away the very next day? The current series against South Africa is a case in point. They won the first match comfortably, and were on an adrenaline high. They could so easily have drawn the next game and maintained their 1-0 lead, yet they decided to combust on the final couple of days and actually lost!
With the series at 1-1, and a fairly decent batting display on the first day of the third game, they lost 5 wickets for 19 runs so that a chance for a series win all but evaporated on day 2. And now, we fight day 3. But before we jump all over their backs, let us step back and think. It is not really the team's fault. It is just the law of averages at work.
5 comments:
The "law of averages" is a wussy argument, and as such is a pseudo-law. Just some non-technical blabber. Like Murphy's "law". Made up for passing time at boring dinner tables. Finishing up inane online sports journalistic reports.
It is a pathetic excuse for not growing up and discipline oneself to get their act together and be consistent. Australia can do it, don't know why these fellows can't. Law of averages, yeah right.
I agree that our cricketers are a bunch of paper tigers. My article was written in jest, more along the lines of the worthless commentary, cliched articles and often inaccurate "facts" dished out by the media in their rush to file quick reports. The bottom line is that our team lacks the killer instinct and application to play according to the match situation.
Having said all this, please do not knock the "law of averages". It may not sound technical, but is essentially the layman's version of "large-sample properties". If you toss a fair coin sufficiently many times, you can expect Heads approximately half the time.
Hey dude, of course I did get the sarcasm in your article! My hyperbole was not aimed at you, but these wussy Indian cricketers who never seem to grow up! So basically I was agreeing with the tone of what you wrote.
Thanks! The selectors seem to have finally come to their senses, dropping both Sehwag and Pathan. Let's see what effect this will have on the two players...
Thanks for writing this.
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