A septet of cricket theories
I was reading Mark Richardson's scathing attack on the New Zealand team's current "R&R theory" in between brush strokes and wind gusts yesterday. I agreed with the sentiment of his column which was, in a nutshell, that chopping and changing players like a Mr Potato Head was not a particularly brilliant way of building momentum for a confidence-deficient cricket team.
But my mind wandered. It meandered. I ended up thinking of my favourite cricket theories - and here they are in alphabetical order.
The Conspiracy Theory (aka The Wishart Theory): The best recent example was when Pakistan’s High Commissioner in London reckoned the extraordinary allegations against Aamer, Asif and Butt were nothing to do with the integrity of the game, but a deliberate ICC attack on Pakistani credibility to keep them out of international cricket. His evidence: "I heard Lorgat talking to Pawar. I don’t know what transpired between them but immediately after that, he left my office and prepared a five-page notice and handed it to the players."
The Ewing Theory: Bastardised ruthlessly for cricket by The Cricket Couch, the guts of it is that if Sachin Tendulkar is in the Indian team for a major tournament, India will not win it. It is named for NBA star Patrick Ewing who was also a bad luck charm for his team, the Knicks.
Fleming's Point Theory: The Kiwi skipper outfoxes prolific Tweeter (and Andy Murray fan) Damien Martyn by stationing an entire platoon of fielders in a grid around point. Martyn slaps a ball and gets caught. At point. And the Beige Brigade erupts in the stands of Australia.
Leg Theory: The weaker, slightly pathetic baby brother of uber-cool Fast Leg Theory, made famous by The Iron Duke, Douglas Jardine. It's pretty simple: bowl at leg stump and chuck all your fielders on the onside. Would it work against Ross Taylor?
The Multiple Captain Theory: What a doozy from the man with more theories than Ancient Greece, John Buchanan. Back in the 2009 IPL, as coach of Kolkata, he came up with the idea of having four or five captains. It might have seemed quite brilliant in his dark little sabermetrics cave but in the Indian sunshine it went down like a rotten mango lassi. The Prince of Kolkata was not happy. Buchanan had a smidgen of ego attached to his theory, claiming he was merely trying "to change the whole approach to captaincy and leadership in cricket". The idea's inspiration? Ric Charlesworth and the Australian women's hockey team. The result? Kolkata stone cold motherless last. Buchanan was sacked 3 months after MCT was born.
The Nightwatchman Theory: More a myth than a theory in my book. I liked Alex's comment when we were going on about how the idea of thrusting a rubbish batsman out into the middle to survive instead of a good batsman was unsound. He said at 11:20 am on March 24 2009: "I can't stand nightwatchmen, it's the height of pussiness by batsmen and their captains."
The Reverse Swing Theory: Probably the most theorised about theory. There are squillions of words and pictures on this one. I've always liked NASA's take on it, with the author's credibility bolstered by the fact the scientist is also mates with Imran Khan. It's explained as follows: "...at a high enough bowling speed the laminar boundary layer transitions into a turbulent state relatively early, more importantly before reaching the seam location. In this case, the seam actually has a detrimental effect on the turbulent boundary layer by making it thicker and weaker and it therefore separates earlier than the turbulent layer over the bottom surface." Totally right.
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What a nonsensical set of ramblings. What's your point Paul?
Better add in the Batting Powerplay theory. Everybody seems to have their own opinion on when to use it. - During final 10 overs so you can slog with minimum risk? - When the two best batsmen are at the crease and set so the team can get the best reward provided they don't get out? The former seems to be the players choice at this stage but as we saw in the Christchurch ODI, leave it too late and there might not be any batsmen left to use it.
I'm not a huge fan of this "rotation" theory. I can see what the selectors are trying to do... give everyone an opportunity to make the "Top 11" before the World Cup. HOWEVER. In all due respect, we've been "building towards the world cup for three years" (Justin Vaughan) so one would've expected they would have the nucleus of a team ready to hit the park and play 5 out of 6 games to get in some form and match-time. Instead, we played, essentially, a B-String team and got walloped. We don't have the depth to be leaving out a "Ryder" or a "Vettori" and although, I see what they're [Selectors] trying to do, it's not going to work the way the think it will. Furthermore, pop a phone call into Graham Henry and ask him how his rest and rotation policy worked before his last World Cup, Mmmhhmmm? In more positive news, apparently 7 out of the last 10 ODI's were won by the side who bats first.. So when it comes to tossing, there's no better bunch of em than....... ahhhh, I'm kidding. Good luck for tomorrow, here's hoping we can pull a win out of the bag.
This 'rotation' is indeed a complete mess. Franklin was in form in the one dayers yet can't get a bat? Nathan McCullum was in form with the ball yet hasn't bowled in 3 matches? And these are fringe players badly needing confidence and time. Selectors saying the complete opposite to what Vettori says. It all comes down to the fact 2 out of the 3 selectors (that got us into this mess with 11 losses) were retained. WTF??
bowl anything to rubbish taylor and he'll get out.
It's a blog Rene, it's allowed to be pointless
the seven specialist batsmen thing is working out well so far...
Shame the Ewing theory doesn't apply to the black caps! Conditionally, the Ewing theory requires two things:
1) The team needs a star that receives a lot of attention. Well, I guess Taylor, Ryder and B mac do receive a lot of attention.....
2) When said star player leaves the team, said team is written off. Well, it doesn't really work if your team would get ripped on regardless if said star was playing for it.
@Bodyline: What happened to that "Brains Trust" they formed with Crowe, Bond etc... I heard a lot about them, then nothing at all. Surely Crowe wouldn't be behind this rotation policy? I know Bond was a fan, because he kept breaking down all the time and needed the recovery-time, but when it comes to your Top order, they need to play in a consistent place, every game. Uncertainty in your role, breeds uncertainty when you're batting. That's Cricket 101. Surprise Surprise, our lower-order has to make the runs again... Franklin should be named Mr Clockwork as he's always on-form on time. Nice work from the more committed McCullum brother too. Nathan really owns that second spin spot in the team.
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So we're playing seven specialist batsmen tomorrow? Is Styris our fifth bowler? Or will Vettori throw the ball to Taylor and McCullum jnr as he did in the test match in Ahmedabad in November?
I suppose if we don't think we've got any decent bowlers we may as well drop the lot of them and play an XI made up completely of batsman.
What the heck are the selectors doing?