Of course, in those worlds you might argue, England had a lucky escape wrt the Ashes…

It doesn’t. Expected luck is even. Bad or good luck that already happened is already set, and what is yet to come is still expected to be even. So if you’ve started your career with good luck, you are morely likely to end it with total on average good luck, than if you started with back luck.

Indeed, over the course of a single match, the chances are unlikely indeed that umpiring decisions will “even out” for any reasonable definition of “even out”.

Over a course of a career, yes, the likelihood is that you will get about as many good breaks as bad, give or take a few breaks, which is unlikely to make a big difference in average statistics over a long career.

But it doesn’t even out, you just get this long future string of around average, against which that initial bump starts to seem small (on average).

But this all assumes completely unbiased (though not necessarily competent) umpiring (or at least, that bias-for situations are balanced by bias-against).

As to the umpiring unfairness, I wouldn’t dismiss the “luck evens out” line so easily. I think it’s probably most applicable over the course of an induvidual’s career rather than to a team over the course of a match, though. Assuming one plays a large number of Test matches, say 50+, I would guess that the number of good and bad decisions you get is probably even on both sides similar. Within a match I don’t think this holds so much, as it seems that quite often Umpires have bad days/matches and make many poor decisions, and some of those decisions are made worse due to inconsistency (see the third umpire referrals in the Lords’ Test).

mart: Suspect Flintoff won’t be dropped as long as he can still stand unaided. Though four days’ break isn’t much when he looking so crook. Broad is a candidate, but they like his runs and he did just enough I suppose. I think he was selected for Tests too early, really. Bopara hasn’t looked convincing, but they will stick with him no doubt. Bell still doesn’t look secure at the crease, but no question of him being dropped. I suspect no change. If anything, changes will be in the bowling I reckon and if so, given the above, I suspect that Onions might – unjustly – be sacrificed on a last-in-first-out basis. (And there was actually supposed to be some Blowers at the end of that self-indulgent little vignette/doodle – which was fuelled only by coffee, tobacco and feverish anticipation btw.)

Neil – reverse swing isn’t – or hasn’t been – that much of an issue, is/has it? Conventional swing (its production anyway) is a difference between the teams though, and between the conditions in the two countries, as you suggest. If the ball had been swinging on the final day, things would have been very different. But I agree that in Aus, Aus are likely to be superior. I haven’t expunged 2006-7 from memory – in fact I have a DVD of Adelaide. That was of course a different Aus (and Eng) team, but the difference from 2005 was stark and has to be down at least in part to the reversal of home advantage.

Effects of umpiring: ‘umpiring mistakes even out’ is I agree unwarranted over any particular time period. I think it’s a kind of loose way of saying ‘mistakes are just another form of luck which affects everyone without any bias’. If you take some Humean or frequentist view of probability, and add ‘in the long run’, the two are not far apart. ‘The luck evens out over time’ which was what derrida derider said, could arguably on some views be taken as necessarily true (given enough time) – i.e. if it didn’t even out over (enough!) time, it wouldn’t count as luck. Not too sure about that – foundations of probability is to say the least a tricky business.

Re: if you played better it wouldn’t be an issue, one might perfectly well argue that most bad dismissals are borderline and could be avoided by playing better. In such cases, the batsman doesn’t have much complaint. What they did was just the kind of thing that gets you dismissed, even though the catch wasn’t actually taken, the ball just missed the edge (or just grazed it, for lbw) , etc. Umpiring howlers or cases in which no error was actually made (you played inside the line on purpose, calculated the catch wouldn’t carry etc.) are harder to take. There is a whole theory wating to be developed of the effects of inaccurate umpiring decisions on the course of a match. Messrs. Duckworth and Lewis might have some ideas.

Pedantry aside, pretty much equal under English conditions . The Aussies haven’t mastered reverse swing. On the harder pitches of the Southern hemisphere, I think the Aussies have the edge (by a small margin).

As opposed to only one of them being pretty much equal?

Test finished as draw, well played from North and Clarke. I think that overall – when playing to our strengths – both teams are pretty much equal: the Aussies have a slightly better batting line-up and we have a slightly better bowling attack. The question is what, if any, changes will be made for the last two tests?

Boycott’s example was “bowl your best bowler” being the one who has either “taken the most wickets” or “looks like taking the most wickets” as the reason for not using Anderson after lunch being “too daft for words”.

I think as an undergraduate I read Wilfrid Hodges’ Simple Cricket Logic. It opens with the phrase “Cricket is about consistency, but not all types of consistency.”

Lack of punctuation conveyed the edgy desperation of your stream of consciousness well. More coffee doesn’t sound like it would have been a good remedy to me though.

I imagine a high-contrast noirish film – rather implausibly, I think it’s Dutch or possibly Belgian. Your surroundings (perhaps a harshly-lit sorting office, one flourotube flickering irregularly) start to distort and spin as Boyc’s voice becomes louder and intolerably louder, repeating “that’s roobeesh, is that,” in increasingly demented tones…more Boycotts are overlaid: “my moom could ‘it that wi’ a steeck o’ rooobarb”… Head pounding, you stare expressionless into the coffee cup, viscous fluid gleaming thick and dark as blood (it’s black and white innit, like the Odyssey). It seems that any drug must be better than none, but you know that more coffee will in reality only draw you further into the terrible cycle of neurosis, cacophony, coffee…but the voices…”Oh, my deah eold thing”…”ooncoovered peeetches”…”quaight splyendid blue cranes, maaaaaaaaaahvellous…” “stick o rooobarb”…”deah eold thing”..”rooobaarb”..”eold thing…thing…thing…thing”. The coffee cup is empty now. The flickering light goes out. Then starts up again, faster. Tinnitus kicks in. “Roooooobaaaaarb”.

Ahem. On the principle that punctilousness in acknowledging failed predictions is a precondition for taking credit when they come off: a lead of 300 was indeed optimistic, or perhaps reality turned out to be improbably unfavourable. Colly’s dismissal perhaps, Flintoff’s too; Colly at the other end might have helped to calm Prior down (P should probably get some ‘ungrateful’ critcism really, a la KP). Can’t really argue that Strauss’s or Bell’s loss was unrepresentative of the proponderance of possible worlds though. There are limits to the face-saving unfalsifibility – and concomitant unvindicability – of predictions framed as probabilities.

OTOH, while ‘little chance of a result’ no longer seems true, perhaps it was at the time of writing. I’m sure the progressive resolution of probability waveforms and the wildly fluctuating outlooks has some bearing on the EMH, but not quite sure how.

Anyway, outlook: the ball should be both dry and swinging this morning. Early wickets are needed or things could get very awkward, with run-chase turning to collapse and desperate rearguard. BTW did anyone else find themselves disproportionately disappointed by Anderson’s lack of application? At least he maintained his duckless status though. I sppose he wanted to get bowling once he was safely off the mark.

Neil: this is certainly an interesting topic but must wait, save to mention that whingeing is supposed to be a Pom specality. I have done enough in the way of displacement activity for it to be time to get to the pub for an exercise in drinking lemonade as slowly as possible, while resisting the temptation to start on the beer. Can’t quite beleve that an Aussie has a TV monopoly on English test cricket, and sells it only packaged with a year’s worth of expensive dross.

It would be very queer indeed if all bad umpiring decisions evened out exactly in terms of some index determined by the number of bad decisions multiplied by the specific importance of that decision. Also, what do we take as time? This test? The ashes series 2009? All ashes series? Either the claim is wrong or its unintelligible.

Thats what I think, for what its worth.

http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2009/08/do-umpiring-mistakes-matter.html

As for the claim if we were good enough, it wouldn’t matter, that is only partially true: if (eg) a bowler is really good, then having a legitimate decision turned down might not matter, because there’d be another one along in a minute. But not otherwise. If the first claim – that luck evens out – is true, then this second claim is irrelevant. If it is false, then the second claim amounts to the claim that match turning luck can’t occur, which is clearly false (think of the batsman reprieved early in their innings who goes on to score a century).