The Ashes 2010/11

[littlebabyjesus]

He wasn't very quick. (Smith)

I agree btw, that Ramps would have succeeded in today's set up. I'm sure he knows that himself too – I wonder if he wakes up in the night and ponders what could have been.

 

[Teaboy]

Don't take this the wrong way Kabbes, but do you play cricket? If so at what level?

 

[mattie]

That's why it's hard.

Hard doesn't mean "impossible" though, although it might mean "beyond our ability". I don't think it is beyond our ability in this specific instance, however.

It is at present a thousand million miles beyond our ability. We might get there, we're nowhere near.

Without wishing to make an appeal to authority, my PhD was on this.

 

[strung out]

He wasn't very quick. (Smith)

yes, he was a swing bowler, and he still had the best figures of pretty much any english bowler in the 90s

 

[kabbes]

Don't take this the wrong way Kabbes, but do you play cricket? If so at what level?

I played it at club level until I was about 16. I haven't played it since.

By asking that question, you reveal that you haven't understood the conversation, though. Don't take this the wrong way, but have you studied statistics? If so, at what level?

 

[Teaboy]

Without wishing to make an appeal to authority, my PhD was on this.

Your PhD was on 'Why England can't play Cricket, 1990-2000'?

 

[kabbes]

It is at present a thousand million miles beyond our ability. We might get there, we're nowhere near.

Without wishing to make an appeal to authority, my PhD was on this.

Your PhD sounds interesting, genuinely.

However, my job is also on this. Or, at least, it's about trying to make explicit the factors that individuals use to project success or failure and build them into stochastic models so that we can use those models to examine the impacts of different strategic directions.

 

[Teaboy]

I played it at club level until I was about 16. I haven't played it since.

By asking that question, you reveal that you haven't understood the conversation, though. Don't take this the wrong way, but have you studied statistics? If so, at what level?

Beyond A-level maths no, I have not studied stats. You seem to be making an assumption on an alterior motive. I've only misunderstood the conversation in so far as your assumption on why I asked the question.

I was generally intrested in your background, which is why I was careful to put in the disclaimer. I had this image of a swashbuckling batsman with a Grey Nicholls in one had and a calculator in the other.

 

[embree]

in the 90s mike smith was consistently one of, if not the best english bowler in the country, yet he only played one test. clearly the selectors didn't like the look of him, despite his outstanding figures. i'm still trying to figure out what it was that the panel couldn't see in him, because the stats suggest he should have been a top bowler for england in england.

Thorpe put Matty Elliott down off his bowling at Headingley. And that was that.

 

[Teaboy]

Thorpe put Matty Elliott down off his bowling at Headingley. And that was that.

Also its Gloucester / Gloucestershire thing, they never get picked for England, ask any native of Kingsholm.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

yes, he was a swing bowler, and he still had the best figures of pretty much any english bowler in the 90s

I'm guessing the judgement is that someone at 79-80 mph won't get the very best batsmen out even if it's swinging, but may get lesser batsmen out – the bowling equivalent of the flat-track bully. There is evidence to the contrary – namely the success of Mohammad Asif, but he has a truly extraordinary ability to swing the ball.

Oh, and he played for Gloucs.

Not an entirely facetious point – Chris Broad moved from Gloucs precisely because he thought he wouldn't be selected for England if he didn't.

 

[kabbes]

I was generally intrested in your background, which is why I was careful to put in the disclaimer. I had this image of a swashbuckling batsman with a Grey Nicholls in one had and a calculator in the other.

Oh gods, no. My batting at number 11 generally consisted of something along the lines of:

dot, dot, accidentally edge past slip to 4, out.

I was a fast bowler. Opening bowler and pretty good, if I say so myself (which I do). I used to have a particularly good Yorker, something 14 year-olds used to find bloody hard to deal with.

 

[mattie]

Your PhD was on 'Why England can't play Cricket, 1990-2000'?

On trying to address real-world problems using collected data, and how engineers could rapidly identify problem areas and the key aggravating factors. The outcome was that it did spot problem areas, but failed completely at identifying aggravating factors- simply due to the sheer volume of potential aggravating factors.

Much like what I'm saying here.

 

[mattie]

Your PhD sounds interesting, genuinely.

However, my job is also on this. Or, at least, it's about trying to make explicit the factors that individuals use to project success or failure and build them into stochastic models so that we can use those models to examine the impacts of different strategic directions.

And when you can't quantify everything....?

 

[kabbes]

On trying to address real-world problems using collected data, and how engineers could rapidly identify problem areas and the key aggravating factors. The outcome was that it did spot problem areas, but failed completely at identifying aggravating factors- simply due to the sheer volume of potential aggravating factors.

Much like what I'm saying here.

Engineering has feedback problems that lead to chaotic outcomes. I'm not convinced that cricket suffers from the same problem. In fact, at the aggregate level, cricket seems enviably predictable.

 

[kabbes]

And when you can't quantify everything....?

Heroic leaps of faith.

I didn't say I always got the right answer.

 

[mattie]

Engineering has feedback problems that lead to chaotic outcomes. I'm not convinced that cricket suffers from the same problem. In fact, at the aggregate level, cricket seems enviably predictable.

Id' say the opposite. The laws of physics stay pretty constant. Throw a person in the loop......

Interestingly the Japanese have produced a number of relatively simple approaches to improving manufacture, of which perhaps the easiest to implement is the delightfully monikored poke yoke. Apparently it translates as 'idiot-proofing.'

 

[Streathamite]

Should a batting line-up be picked in the same way as a bowling attack, i.e. to fulfill different roles? Or do you just pick your best batsmen?

the former, deffo. The strategic element is what makes cricket so wonderful

 

[kabbes]

The laws of physics stay pretty constant.

Yes. They consistently and predictably create feedback issues that lead to chaotic outcomes.

Nothing is going on in the weather, for example, that isn't dictated by the laws of physics. But predicting it is a bitch. Give me cricket any day of the week!

 

[mattie]

Yes. They consistently and predictably create feedback issues that lead to chaotic outcomes.

Nothing is going on in the weather, for example, that isn't dictated by the laws of physics. But predicting it is a bitch. Give me cricket any day of the week!

Without wishing to labour the point, I'm not sure what you mean by a feedback issue.

Anyway, yes, predicting weather is a bitch because of its complexity. And yet, somehow, some animals can predict storms. But, like cricket coaches, they've yet to articulate how.

 

[kabbes]

Animals can't predict storms. That's a fallacy. They just take certain actions when certain, straightforward conditions are met. Those conditions are correlated with storms, so that if a storm happens, there is a good chance that the action will precede it. However, mostly they will take the same action and there will be no storm.

Which is all a rather marvellous analogy for acting under a set of apparently opaque but actually explicable and identifiable criteria.

 

[kabbes]

Also: surely if you studied systems, you must have come across the concept of feedback?

 

[mattie]

Also: surely if you studied systems, you must have come across the concept of feedback?

Yes. It's what you mean by it in this sense that I struggle with.

We'd just refer to it as a Complex System (now a proper noun, presumably as someone wanted a fancy name for the funding bodies), where its overall behaviour is not readily generalisable from the behaviour of individual components.

This is actually quite apt, as a game of cricket is a Complex System - we like to think we understand how the components work and fit together, but we've very little idea. And, if we go deep enough down to the individual's behaviour, the problem starts to become recursive.

(Apologies if me and kabbes are boring the tits off the rest of you, but it's rare Complex Systems are in any way interesting or associated with interesting things.)

 

[Idaho]

Should a batting line-up be picked in the same way as a bowling attack, i.e. to fulfill different roles? Or do you just pick your best batsmen?

Start with the list of the best ones and work from there.

 

[fen_boy]

How many statisticians does it take to change a light bulb?

 

[mattie]

Animals can't predict storms. That's a fallacy. They just take certain actions when certain, straightforward conditions are met. Those conditions are correlated with storms, so that if a storm happens, there is a good chance that the action will precede it. However, mostly they will take the same action and there will be no storm.

Which is all a rather marvellous analogy for acting under a set of apparently opaque but actually explicable and identifiable criteria.

So, they can, but with false positives (although 'anticipate' is perhaps better term than 'predict')

As for using simple measures, of course, I wasn't implying they rely upon black magic or pagan gods.

What should be clear is that they've learnt something which humans could pick up on well before they could articulate it, which was again well before they could quantify whatever these signals are. Just so I'm clear, what I'm arguing is that coaches are attuned to certain things that don't make their way into cricket scorecards.

 

[kabbes]

I guess that I'm arguing that it's a cop out for coaches to simply say that it's intuition. If they are good at identifying good players, they at least owe it to themselves to figure out why they are good at identifying good players.

 

[mattie]

I guess that I'm arguing that it's a cop out for coaches to simply say that it's intuition. If they are good at identifying good players, they at least owe it to themselves to figure out why they are good at identifying good players.

Because they cannot articulate or quantify it - if you could, you'd be pretty rich.

Can you honestly say, in quantifiable terms, why it is that you chose to marry your wife, why you thought her above all others was the one you'd go through life with? It's at some level deterministic, but I don't think you'd have much luck expressing it. Although I'd expect there to be a sub-routine called 'big tits'.

 

[kabbes]

I can certainly identify the factors that lead me to think she's the best person on earth. Can't you?

 

[kabbes]

Can't you about your own wife, I mean. Not about my wife. I hope.