Tag Archives: predictions

An Early Call on the India-England Series

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So I added my prediction to the multi-lingual mini-podcast on Bored Cricket Crazy Indians. Strangely enough, despite being an active contributor on the Internet tubes for years, this is the first time that I have done a voice thingy. The podcast is an interesting experiment with the participants predicting the India-England Test series (scoreline or other aspects) by speaking in their mother tongue. So there is Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, even Afrikaans. I added mine in Malayalam even though strictly speaking, it is more my mother’s language than my mother language, as I only know how to speak it and am functionally illiterate as far as writing goes.

My prediction was 1-0 England. It is no secret that both teams have a strong batting lineup and their bowling is comparatively weak. Both sides have struggled to take out oppositions in the recent past. But England has a slight edge, having recently played against a stronger team at home (i.e., same grounds) with the same team. India, on the other hand, had just finished a series against a weak team (West Indies) which was marred by rain and ended in an less-than-satisfactory 1-0 win.

When I made my prediction, I thought that India would be playing with a different team. Ironically, many of the team members who were expected to replace the weakened team in the West Indies are having trouble. Sehwag already out of the first Test. Zaheer Khan a few overs into the first bowling innings. Tendulkar suffering from some illness. Now Gautam Gambhir hit in the elbow. The team members left standing were all part of the team in West Indies.

The outcome of the series would probably be determined by batting collapses or at least under-performing innings, such as the first India innings. I thought England was on their way to a fantastic breakdown today after losing 4 wickets quickly, but India took the shoes off their throat. Dhoni’s tactics have been very strange, to say the least. There are tactics that make sense, but are wrong in the particular context, and you can make a case to criticize them. But other tactics are spectacularly nuts (like not having Ishant bowl immediately after lunch or having Dravid keep towards the end) that it seems like a terrible waste to explain why they are wrong.

Ashes Predictions in the Dust

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Like Ducking Beamers did, I took a look back at my Ashes predictions. It was not a happy experience as I got most of them wrong. Surprisingly though, I got 4 out of 5 Test results right, the only one wrong being the Lord’s Test which went England’s way instead of Australia’s. The caveat is that I thought the last Test would be a dead rubber instead of a decider.

So what went wrong and what went right?

  1. Hughes being dropped after the second Test despite the presence of Hussey who was even worse and did nothing to help Australia.
  2. Pietersen out because of injury. This was somewhat predictable, but I thought Flintoff was more likely to be out by injury than Pietersen.
  3. The two 5-wicket hauls of Stuart Broad. Given enough chances, such performances are perhaps inevitable. I still don’t think he should be in the team, but with Flintoff gone, England do not have any other all-rounder.
  4. I was not wrong about Johnson’s batting, because his South African performances were way beyond his lifetime accomplishments. So it had to regress towards the norm. But his bowling also had a turn for the worse, which I didn’t expect. Nevertheless, he still took 20 wickets, two less than the top wicket-taker, Hilfenhaus.
  5. I didn’t expect Michael Clarke to do as well as he did. But his failures usually mirrored Australian’s failures. So in a way, his contribution to the series was less than what would be suggested by his averages.

Other points were more-or-less a roll of the dice. So I am not too bothered about them.

Ashes Predictions

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Following Q’s lead on the contest by Commentary Position, here are my predictions for the Ashes. (I know I am cheating a bit since it is the 3rd day of the first Test, but better late than never). By the way, most of the following is HOPE, *not* really analysis or predictions.

Most Runs Overall: Phillip Hughes – He had the most to prove and he is extremely talented. Plus, he has the greatest opportunity being an opener.

Most Runs England: Kevin Pietersen – Probably will try to make amends for his stupid shot in the rest of the series.

Most Runs Australia: Phillip Hughes

Most Wickets Overall: Jimmy Anderson – Maybe this is a bit surprising, but I think he has a greater chance to gain more wickets among the weak England attack than somebody from the Australian side. It is an indication of how poor the English bowling is than how better Anderson is.

Most Wickets England: Jimmy Anderson

Most Wickets Australia: Mitchell Johnson – seems to be the universal choice, but I think Siddle is a strong second.

Best Tosser (captain who wins the most tosses):  Ricky Ponting – Your guess is as good as mine.

Man of the Series:  Phillip Hughes – This could be Mitchell Johnson if he does some stuff with the bat, but the South African tour was definitely inconsistent with Johnson’s previous record, so I doubt how much he can replicate his success there. And if the English bowling continues to be trash, he may not get to do much with the bat.

1st Test Result: Draw (at this stage, Australia will probably run out of time with rain unless England collapse in a heap)

2nd Test Result:  Australia (it is a Lord’s Test)

3rd Test Result: Draw

4th Test Result: Australia

5th Test Result: England

Overall series result:  2-1

THE TRIVIALITIES

Number of Tests that lose overs to rain (note, not bad light): 3 (Definitely cheating here since there is one confirmed so far, so 2 more seems to be the safe bet)

Number of Tests that Flintoff will be able to manage: 5 (Injuries are unpredictable, but let’s go with 5)

Number of Tests won by an innings: Zero (though the current Test is definitely a candidate if rain doesn’t kill the Test)

Number of Tests played by McDonald: 1 (if the last Test is a dead rubber, he will definitely play)

Number of Tests played by Lee: 1 (If Australia win the 2nd Test, there will not be any changes to the lineup unless one of the three fast bowlers is really having a bad time. Depends on Ponting though.)

IPL Matches Going Against Form

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The last four matches of the IPL have gone against the team that was leading, thus creating a situation where even after 6 matches, every team has a reasonably good chance of making the semi-finals. Only 3 points separate the teams placed at No. 3 through No. 8. Even the hapless Bangalore Royal Challengers and Kolkata Knight Riders have a chance! Let’s take a quick look at each of the matches.

First, Bangalore reversed their 4-match losing streak by pipping Kolkata in a low-scoring match. Each team looked like they wanted to throw the match away, a contest that Kolkata won when their opponents needed 10 runs off the final over and they gave it away by some shoddy bowling. Except for a few of the bowlers, both teams looks extremely shabby in this match.

The second match was similar as Mumbai Indians chasing one of the lowest scores of this IPL against Kings XI Punjab succumbed by 3 runs. In the final over, Mumbai required 12 runs and Yusuf Abdulla held his nerve to restrict Mumbai. For the second time this IPL, we see a bowler giving away a wide in the final over, but getting the job done.

Deccan Chargers were winning everything in sight and Delhi Daredevils were recovering from their surprise defeat by Rajasthan. But an upset resulted when Delhi’s increasingly sharp bowling restricted Deccan to 148/9 and their batting recovered after early losses to take them to a comfortable win. Did Deccan peak too soon?

The fourth match saw the same old story of Rajasthan’s fragile batting mocking their bowlers for even trying to restrict their opponents. It almost seems that any score is difficult for the Rajasthan Royals to chase. Chennai Super Kings get a lifeline after sharing the bottom with Bangalore and Kolkata.

At this stage, the Top Four (DC, DD, KXP, MI) have played 5 matches each and the Bottom Four (CSK, RR, BRC, KKR) 6 matches each. The next two days will feature each of the Top Four taking on the Bottom Four. And if somehow the latter win all the matches, the IPL is wide open as the Points difference becomes less relevant.

Although it is silly to make predictions at this juncture when things are still very much in flux, we can make the following assessments:

  • While it is theoretically possible for Kolkata and Bangalore to reach the semi-finals, they do not seem capable enough. They have had the most churn of all the teams employing 18-20 players each in a handful of matches. They still don’t have their game together.
  • Unless Rajasthan’s batting improves significantly in the next few games, you can pretty much write them off. It is true that bowling wins matches, but only if the batting is at least average.
  • Mumbai seems to be the most well-balanced team. They have had the least churn and their stars have clicked. Their batting and bowling are among the best in the tournament. Both their defeats have been close and because of mismanaged chases. They should be able to fix that.
  • I fear that Deccan may not be able to sustain the momentum. For one, Fidel Edwards will be leaving the team to join West Indies in England. And the batting order seems a bit top-heavy. I don’t see Deccan easily coming back from a top order collapse.

By Sunday evening, we will get a better idea of the general trends or, if there are more surprises, we will have no idea at all! Hopefully rain will not play spoilsport. I do not see any surprises on Friday, but Saturday is a different matter.

Don’t forget to participate in our IPL discussions on our website.

The Graveyard of T20 and IPL Predictions

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I sincerely feel sorry for Ron over at cricketanalysis.com. He has been trying very hard to get his predictions for the Indian Premier League matches correct by tweaking the necessary parameters, but he seems to have hit a dead end, one reason being the illogical decisions that teams make. As he says,

I have learned quite a lot from doing the predictions over the first 11 games, even though my record is pretty dismal. The first thing is to never assume that teams will play their best lineups, by “best” meaning the lineup that I think is best, or the lineup that I think common sense would dictate. [...]

Another thing I have learned is that teams will never stick to five bowlers only if they have other people in the lineup that can bowl, no matter how much better or worse their part-timers are than their regular bowlers.

UPDATE: Apparently, he quit making IPL predictions around the same time I was writing this post – I noticed this after I put up this post. Here he goes:

No more predictions for IPL games. [...] Probably I will go 10-0 from now but whatever. Actually if things keep going against the model so accurately, it might have some value for fade purposes. [...]

One big problem I have is that fielding isn’t measured well by stats. For international cricket this isn’t a problem, because bowlers bowl with their international team consistently and so the collective fielding abilities of the side are incorporated into the bowling statistics. But the IPL is much different obviously. Maybe I will look at a way to measure fielding. I have some ideas.

In any case, Twenty20 is incredibly difficult to predict, primarily because there are not enough overs which prevent us from applying standard cricket ideas. T20 is evolving right in front of eyes and even the players and captains are making their best effort to understand what strategies and tactics work.

tragedy-v-statistics

In T20, one over can change the entire complexion of the game. We saw this in clear terms during the Rajasthan-Kolkata match. Rajasthan was easily in front when Munaf Patel effectively gave away 13 runs in one ball. Kolkata should have won the match in the final over, but Kamran Khan bowled a tight over against the flow of events and took Rajasthan to the Super Over where they won. In 50-over matches, a bad over is not necessarily a cause for surrender. Teams have easily recovered from the depths because of the large number of overs.

The smaller number of T20 overs means that wickets have an additional significance in terms of balls lost. If a team loses 10 wickets, that is almost 2 overs lost. It could mean the difference between a tough score of 180+ and an achievable 160-odd. This means that wickets in the last quarter of an innings can effectively kill a team’s ability to post a challenging target.

Finally, don’t understimate the effect of the “tactical” timeout in the middle of the innings. In quite a few matches, it has made a tremendous difference in the final score. What we have seen repeatedly is that big starts do not seem to materialize into huge totals.

Nice to know that Ron is a fan of Baseball Prospectus which uses statistical analysis techniques. I would like to see more of that to cricket, but I believe that Twenty20 is not mature enough to allow that possibility. Test and ODI cricket are much better avenues for predictions.

[Photo licensed from disrupsean]