I can’t remember if I’ve had cause to mention this before, but The Beast is an Australian. This may explain his reaction to the news last week of England winning The Ashes series 3-1: he was throwing up the following morning. Of course an English cat would not have reacted in such an extreme way. Partly because of a stiff upper lip, but largely because it would have got used to results like that as a kitten.
I mention this just so i can link to some succour I found for The Beast, and for other Aussies, from a stats paper published in 1993 – the year of this famous delivery:
Which is worth watching carefully, not so much because of the amount the ball turned, but for its trajectory in the air (I think it starts on the line of middle and off).
But back to the paper. I blogged about it on the blog of Significance, the magazine of the Royal Statistical Society. The blog is a fairly new enterprise, with several statisticians writing about stats. My post is about the hazards of batting, and shows how good Don Bradman was (not that we need telling).
The Beast, by the way, tells me that he prefers the shorter forms of cricket. With the attention span he has, I think this means One1 cricket, rather than Twenty20.
My Dad very excitedly told my husband all about the Ashes win on Sunday, over Skype. My husband’s response?
"I hear England also just won a very close match against Finland in the world domino tournament. You must be just as excited about that, eh? Big week for you guys".
Enjoyed your Bradman post Bob – I’ve often thought that, despite the plethora of ‘statistics’ (i.e., numbers) bandied around in cricket (and all other sports), the focus on averages (to at least 2 d.p., of course) is all-consuming, and not particularly insightful. Might have trouble selling survival analysis to the likes of KP though…
The Ashes was a peculiar experience this year – almost anti-climactic in a way, such was England’s dominance. As a (very) long-time follower of England (and one-time leggie too, by the way, so always good to see Warnie in full flight), I don’t really have a well-trained emotional response to displays of crushing efficiency and effectiveness!