As another successful season draws to a close all that is left for us to do is raise a glass of what ever you fancy and congratulate the winners of the 2006 on field trophies:

• Bowling – Simon Gundry for his outstanding performances with the ball and consistently striking fear into the hearts of opposition batsmen – of whom he skittled out no fewer than 14 for an average of 9.14
• Batting – The “Bhau Patel Award” goes to Keith Roberts who gave our top order batsmen a lesson in batting, rattling up a whopping 403 in 12 innings (an average of 36.64)
• Catching – Andy Wingfield who demonstrated he truly has the safest hands in the club by pouching 8 match winning catches this season (without the aid of wicket keeper gloves)
• Man of the Match – this year we have “Men of the Matches” as the award is shared between Quentin Davies and Mark Bradshaw both of whom were voted player of the match on 3 occasions each

Off the field plaudits go to Gwyn Thomas (“Gwindia”) who won the 2006 Fantasy Cricket with an unassailable 1814 points (virtually 100 ahead of the nearest contender).

There is, however, one last prize yet to be awarded and that’s because it hasn’t been won yet. I am sure you’ll all agree that the introduction of reports for each match has enhanced our already wonderful website by giving life to the bare and colourless statistics recorded for each game and thereby adding to the legacy of the Club.

Therefore, I’d also like to offer up another award – a copy of Cricket in Pictures’ signed by this summer’s victorious England skipper Andrew Strauss – to the author of the match report voted most popular by you.

To cast your vote please first read all the reports (they really are very good) and email me with the date of the match your favourite report was written. Try to be as objective as possible. And it goes without saying that you cannot vote for yourself!

Closing date for responses is Friday 20 October. Pablo dot palao at blueyonder.co.uk

Awards 2006 and past seasons

by Andy Wingfield, 7 September 2006
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In the wake of Sunday’s 7 wicket defeat to Morden Corinthians, it was decided to take a look at what could be learned from the Exiles’ batting performances over the last two weeks (against British Library and then Morden) – where two scores around 180 (179-5 and 182-5) were achieved in very differing styles.

Below are the 5 over splits from our two performances:

It is clear we got off to a very slow start against the Library, before we recovered to post a par score, whilst against Morden we got off to a decent start, but we unable to significantly accelerate.

This is further illustrated by the below Manhattan for our innings against British Library:

The line of best fit clearly illustrates a massive increase, with its upwards slope.

The Manhattan against Morden Corinthians tells a very different story:

While there is still an increase in run-rate, the increase is significantly less severe – illustrated by the slope of the trend-line.

Comparing the two innings together with the below worm concurs with the above.

There are many reasons for this. The first, and most prominent, is the quality of bowling faced, and the timing of these bowlers’ spells.

Marke, of British Library, bowled 8 overs at the start of that game resulting in figures of 8-6-3-0 – fantastic economy, whilst at the death in that game, the Library bowled ‘depth-charge’ bowlers, allowing the Exiles batters to accelerate. The bowling, in affect, became more ‘sloggable’ the longer the innings went on.

Against Morden, the openers were less accurate, so the Exiles got off to a more fluent start. However, the depth charge bowlers were brought on in the middle of the innings, allowing the Exiles to comfortably maintain progress – without going crazy – but it is probably this move which won, or at least significantly helped to win, the game for Morden – because at the death, when a significant acceleration is usually demanded, the opening bowlers had returned and there were thus far less balls delivered which were asking to be hit to the boundary.

The second reason for the Exiles batters perhaps not achieving the maximum out of their batting line-up is batters mentality. Obviously it was affected by the above discussion, but surely there are more runs out there? Just look at the Manhattan for Pakistan’s run-chase against England at Southampton Rose Bowl on 5 September, 2006:

So what can we learn from the Internationals?

This is actually a very similar Manhattan to the Exiles batting efforts against Morden (look at the slope of the trend-line), apart from 2 main differences:

Firstly, the trend-line is much higher – at all points – than the Exiles efforts – it starts at over 4 (Exiles v Morden starts at about 3) and finishes at about 6 and a half (6 for the Exiles).

Secondly, there is only one maiden in the Pakistan innings and there appears to be far more overs where more runs were scored than the current run-rate – i.e. – towers that reach to higher than the trend-line. The break-down table below confirms this:

Whilst the numbers of overs in Pakistan’s innings with 0, 1 or 2 runs scored – 10 – is similar to the numbers of such overs in the Exiles innings – 14, the number of overs with 6 or more runs scored 24 for Pakistan and 12 for the Exiles is obviously significantly different.

It is also subsequently interesting to observe that the proportion of boundaries between the Pakistan innings and the Exiles innings are very similar – thus suggesting that the discrepancy in run-rates is realised by a difference in other scoring shots – ones and twos.

Conclusions

Are pretty obvious – on days when the Exiles have a strong batting line-up, like last Sunday, the Exiles need to be of the mind to score more runs – at all stages of the innings. Combine the two qualities shown in their two innings discussed above – start like against Morden, but then accelerate like against British Library. If the ball is there to be hit, don’t be afraid to try to smash it out of the ground, whilst if it is a length ball on the stumps, singles can still be pinched.

Scores of well over 200 are what should be looked for in games such as the Exiles last two and it doesn’t really need as much discussion as in this article to note as much. But hopefully it might help
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