They both share why they got interested in metrics - childhood stories. They give two stories - one of a tethered cat and the other of the Chesterton fence. Tethered cats are those that we follow blindly like the monks disciples who bought a cat and tied it outside to replace a cat that was tired outside because it was making noise. Chestertons fence is the guy who breaks tradition and instead of walking around the fence goes through it one day and gets killed by a bull. The first about holding on mindlessly to old traditions, and the second is about breaking rules without thinking about the repercussions properly.
To win a world cup they say one needs a strong back (to stand tall in adversity and labour hard) a soft front (be open and friendly and not be defensive) and a wild heart (to dream of things unimagined) - the keys to survive and be happy in life. The other factors the analysis found were - batting strength, winning record and experience in squad. In shorter formats as rules changed to two new balls, four men out instead of five, they needed three categories of batsmen who could open aggressively, rotate strike in middle, hit boundaries in the end.
England, under their new selector Strauss and captain Eoin Morgan, adopted an openness to fail and bat aggressively, prepare for physical and emotional toil, get centred on HOW they decided to play - aggressively. England came back strongly and won the World Cup.
The authors talk of playing ones natural game. When faced with big battalions they say it's better to innovate like the Lankans did with their opening pair, Murli, Malinga, Mendis, choices to attack, bat second. Another innovation is the reverse sweep which is a high risk and high reward shot. To innovate one needs to accept a negative metric that other people are unwilling to accept. The idea is that the comparative advantage of being unorthodox increases as the proportion of orthodox players increases.
In the chapter on fast bowling they conclude that the ideal length for a fast bowlers is the 6-8 metre length more than the pitching up length of 8-9 metres. The length that most economical and those with the best averages bowled - McGrath, Bhuvaneshwar, Philander and Abbas.
There is a lot of discussion on why Indians don't have many left handers - something to do with pitches that favour spin versus those that favour pace. Something to do with the angle that right hand bowlers bowl. With the advent of neutral umpires, DRS, Hawkeye, many issues got sorted. I always thought it was something you were naturally - didn't think so much about pitches and stuff.
Other interesting things are that toss didn't play any role in results. The thing about how the swing in the ball is an advantage to bowlers. That spin is only four degrees turn and the best players of spin score twice as fast and twice as safely when hitting against the spin - something Dravid endorsed.
Come One days and T20s and the resources became limited - wickets and overs increasing the value of the wicket, of scoring rates. The importance of leg spin in T20s as they are unpredictable and in the hot zone, most dangerous. They actually combine the best aspects of fast bowlers and finger spinners - taking wickets and conceding fewer runs.
And it ends with a nice quote from Brad Gilbert's book 'Winning Ugly' where he says
- Give your opponent nothing
- What are his strengths? Weaknesses?
- How do I play my strengths to his weaknesses?
- Read no 1
With all their experience with Rajasthan Royals and Multan Sultans where they used a lot of analytics, they decided to captain the side from the outside. And then decided against it, wisely i would think.
Very interesting book with a lot of insights. Thanks Krishna.
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