31 July 2007

Tossers

Lest we forget, in my opinion, the result of the current test match rests on the fall of the coin.

I recall many years ago being told in no uncertain terms by my club's captain at the time that when you win the toss you " think about fielding first, think about it again but always bat first".

It has to be exceptional circumstances that dictate that a captain can be brave enough to insert the opposition and have to bat last on what will inevitably be a wearing wicket. Of course we will never know, but I think that the English swing bowlers would have bowled India out for fewer than England were bowled out for if the situation had been reversed (how about that for a burble).

2 comments:

Peter Lamb said...

I think a number of poor shots by England's batsmen may have contributed as well!

Ed said...

We'll never know I guess. But it wouldn't be too difficult to investigate how many runs the toss is worth and come up with a model to understand that.

Games like this where the 1st innings is a low score compared to all other innings in the match, will always create the suspicion that the toss of the coin overly influenced the result. in this case I think that's very unfair on India though - I'm not sure i agree with you that England would have bowled India out for less than 198!