Tag Archives: cricinfo

Robots at Cricinfo

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Looks like there is a new technology in town:

The Big Ten Network, a joint venture of the Big Ten Conference and Fox Networks, began using the technology in the spring of 2010 for short recaps of baseball and softball games. They were posted on the network’s Web site within a minute or two of the end of each game; box scores and play-by-play data were used to generate the brief articles. (Previously, the network relied on online summaries provided by university sports offices.) As the spring sports season progressed, the computer-generated articles improved, helped by suggestions from editors on the network’s staff, says Michael Calderon, vice president for digital and interactive media at the Big Ten Network.

In the past, I suspected Cricinfo of using the same kind of technology, but my suspicion was more down to earth, meaning the commentary was the kind of mundane stuff like “FOUR. Cover drive”. However, Will Luke, a commentator at Cricinfo, said that they didn’t use anything like that and actually had to type everything.

At that time, I praised him & Cricinfo for such attention to quality, but I think now if they still actually do that, the folks at Cricinfo are truly nuts. You could have a simple addition to the scoring system to generate the necessary boilerplate. And then the commentators could add more interesting stuff like emails from fans.

Having said that, I think the quality of commentary at Cricinfo has been very depressing of late. I am not sure if the ESPN acquisition has contributed to it, but something’s not quite right. If England is playing, I tune into the Guardian over-by-over commentary which is far more worth reading. I suppose having some robots at Cricinfo may even make a positive difference.

The Silliest Cricket Article In Recent Times

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I suppose that Cricinfo writers have their quota of so many words for an article. But do you need to use these words?

this is perhaps the tightest, most evenly balanced, and the most confident English Test team in the last four decades.

Really? This is the “most confident” team since 1970? I wouldn’t expect that Sambit Bal would take the time to search his own archives, but surely he can remember the period under Michael Vaughan when England had six consecutive unbeaten Test series, including the Ashes win. If I remember correct, there was quite a bit of hyperbole back then.

And then this:

From the outside, there might seem to be little difference in opening and batting at No. 3, but for someone as meticulous as Rahul Dravid, the deviation from regular routine can be hugely disruptive. He coped admirably in the second innings at Lord’s and the first innings at Trent Bridge, but in the swinging conditions in England, the prospect of an unplayable ball early is far higher, and losing Dravid early not only meant that India were also deprived of their best No. 3 batsman, but also exposed VVS Laxman, who has been phenomenal at No. 5 or 6 in the last five years, to the new ball.

So Dravid opened successfully two times out of three, including scoring a century and batting all but 3 overs of the Indian innings, but it is still not enough. Also Laxman scored two fifties (once after facing the second ball of the innings), but he cannot be exposed to the new ball. Of course, when one bats at No. 5 or No. 6 in a Test, one never gets to face a new ball. What did you say? They change the ball after a few dozen overs? OK, never mind.

And this:

But if India haven’t managed to be the team they could have been, they must ask a few tough questions of themselves. [...] And only Gambhir can say if it was impossible for him to play the second Test after the blow to his elbow in the first Test, but examples of cricketers playing through pain aren’t rare.

Words fail me here.

The “Take a Bow” Commentators

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I don’t know when this epidemic struck the Cricinfo commentators, but every time a batsman hits a century or a bowler takes a 5-for, they start using the term “take a bow, so-and-so”. I did a Google search on the Cricinfo site for this and there are about 650 results for the term.

This is weird because nobody bows in cricket unlike say in tennis at Wimbledon, or in a play on Broadway. A batsman hitting a century raises his bat and maybe his helmet to the crowds, and usually looks upwards to the heavens to thank someone up there. A bowler taking a wicket runs screaming towards his teammates, or, as is becoming the fashion, stays where he is with arms stretched skywards and waiting for the other players to hug him.

Of course, this term is not exclusive to Cricinfo writers. It may have originated in the TV commentators, I don’t know, Harsha Bhogle, Ravi Shastri or Sunny Gavaskar. Anyway, it has been irritating for a long time now. I hope the fad ends soon.

More Reactions to the New Cricinfo

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Achettup at Short of a Length:

so far I think the new look is refreshing and current and very well thought out. A minor annoyance, well there is one, is that when I click on Full Scorecard I get each innings scorecard and not the actual full scorecard. I don’t know if thats just for these matches since it doesn’t seem to be the case for all prior matches that have been covered, but I hope they do put up an Overall option since I don’t really like swapping between views to get the final picture. Other than that its the great job we’ve come to expect with the number one cricket website and a great reminder as to why they’re so far ahead of the competition.

King Cricket:

Overall, thumbs up, but it’s not the kind of thing we’re going to write a whole post about. Eh? Oh.

Left-arm Chinaman:

Well, much like the march from peaceful, predictable, pleasant present to the feckless, futile, frightening future, cricinfo has embraced brash, conspicuous modernity and rebranded its website.

I guess that is the lot then. It will take some exceptionally good writing from another latecomer to the party to add them to this list.

Reactions to the New Cricinfo

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Cricinfo has put together their new look, and I haven’t really worked it out yet, butI like the look of their hot searches section.

Ducking Beamers:

On the one hand, it is “cleaner,” mostly because of the neat boxes, each with its nicely marked function (”News,” “Specials,” so on). You also have more color (yellow! blue! black!). But you still don’t get a sense on what’s truly important and what’s not. There’s far too much text; the black box on top should be more prominent and include article photos next to it (rather than the random one to its left).

Amy S Talks Cricket:

Cricinfo has been beaten to a pulp and then remodelled into the shit crazy website it is now. I like it. Gone are the days of blue and white colour schemes, Cricinfo now has balls. Drop down menus, everything in neat little compartments, ESPN plastered all over it.

SledgeHammer at WellPitched:

The ESPN takeover is complete!!!

My first impressions are that they have done really well in condensing all the links into the main menu and drop-down submenus. The Scores/Results/Fixtures widget on the homepage will also be very useful. It’s going to take me a while to get used to the new layout, but I suspect that the site will be significantly easier to use.
From the lighter scorecards to the gawdy black main news content area.We like the new look. Its web 2.0.(I’m not sure if it really is but it sounds cool to say that)

The New Cricinfo is Live

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Here you go:

cricinfo

Video seems to be the big thing. Not too many ads on the home page (most below the fold). More emphasis on the ESPN brand at various places. News, Scores, Fixtures – easily accessible. The drop-down menu is pretty comprehensive. They threw the kitchen sink at it and it works without looking cluttered.

The New Cricinfo

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Will Luke at Cricinfo and The Corridor points out Sambit Bal’s pre-announcement of the new Cricinfo page. Will says,

In my experience, redesigns provoke an equal mix of pleasant surprise and vitriolic hatred. But from what I’ve seen, I think it’s pretty sweet.

“Elegant” instead of “sweet” is the word I would use. The new design looks much better, but I suppose I will miss the soon-to-be-classic Cricinfo look mostly for reasons of nostalgia. Also perhaps the fact that Cricinfo will now look similar to the thousands of other wanna-be cricket sites, though none of the others can claim its authority.

In all senses of the word, Cricinfo is the Google of the cricket world. A few weeks ago, there was a small hiccup when Cricinfo went down for a few minutes and the real-time chatter on Twitter just erupted. It was as if some earthquake struck the fans inhabiting the cricket world. That Cricinfo has been able to maintain its dominance in the age of cricket cable and some much competition is amazing.

Hopefully, we will get to see the new Cricinfo site very soon.

It is Official: Cricinfo Writers Don’t Know Math

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Andy Zaltzman writes:

Sunil Gavaskar, whilst unquestionably worthy of icon status, would have to adapt to Twenty20 more rapidly than he did to one-day internationals. He famously batted through a 60-over World Cup innings for an unbeaten 36, leaving India an agonising 203 runs short of victory with just seven wickets in hand. Under the Duckworth-Lewis method, that is equivalent to a Twenty20 innings of 5 not out.

Ahem… Cough! Cough! Isn’t 36 in a 60-over match equal to 12 in a 20-over match? 60/20 = 3 and 36/12 = 3.

Please get these people a calculator, for heaven’s sakes.

Cricinfo Catches the Rediff Virus

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A while ago, I had written about Rediff’s statistical determination of which the best Test team is. “Statistical” as in “lies, damned lies and statistics“. Now, Cricinfo seems to be going down the same slippery slope with their assessment on which the best Test captain is. Cricinfo makes the same logical mistakes as Rediff does.

For example, neither stats take losses against weak or strong opposition into account. For example, if India wins against Australia at home and then loses or is held to a draw against Bangladesh or Zimbabwe, then there is something obviously wrong with ranking India at the top of the charts.

Cricket Match

Cricket Match

 

Also, margins of victory are not taken into account. So a 1-run or 2-wicket victory counts the same as a crushing innings victory. For example, the difference between the winners and losers of the 1992/93 Frank Worrell Trophy was a single run. Or the 2004 Australian tour of Sri Lanka, where they trailed in the first innings each time, but managed a 3-0 series rout.

How do you weigh a captain’s performance in victories, draws and losses? Should it be discounted in losses and only considered if it helped result in a draw, as opposed to, let’s say, the weather or pitch not allowing a result? What if the captain hit a 50 in a win, but two other batsmen hit double-centuries? Is the 50 useful or meaningless?

I can go on and on about that. The point is that it is difficult to consider all the possible factors and impossible to assign the correct positive and negative weights to those factors. Cricket has so many different variables: the pitch, the weather, home advantage, teamwork, skill, luck, umpiring errors, etc. that it is impossible to pinpoint the best Team or player unless there is a huge difference between one Team and the others. For example, Australia could easily claim to be the No. 1 Test team, after beating almost every team comprehensively at home and abroad. Shane Warne could claim to be the No. 1 Test bowler against every country except India. 

Finally, even if we accept that a captain is responsible for the team’s success, I think the whole idea behind Cricinfo’s analysis is wrong. It is not about the results under the captain that mattered. What is more important is how that captain transformed the team. If the team was successful earlier and the captain merely replicates that success (Ponting) or has a lower degree of success (Richardson), then he cannot be termed as a great captain. On the other hand, if the team had been poor or average before, and the captain inspired them to greater victories (Ranatunga, Ganguly), then he can claim to be a better captain.

[Image licensed from James Cridland]