The Ashes
Firstly. here's all the Stats you are ever likely to need for this
series ...
Head to Head Stats : England v
Australia
And England v All-Comers
The first two games - warm-up matches - have been cancelled due to
rain. A most frustrating situation for the visitors.
I have been disappointed by CricketArchive's decision to disappear
behind a paywall, and I use that verb carefully since I have now
decided not to check there or to link to their scorecards and stats
which I have done for a number of years and contributed a number of
photographs including the vast majority of head and shoulders shots of
women players. I have since discovered in conversations with other
followers of the women's game that I am far from being alone! So
where can the avid follower look now?
Well, of course there is always this site - just check
this page where I have
tried to list things as carefully as possible (the Ashes links are
also given above) and to give stats on
such varied things as Head to Head matches e.g. for this upcoming
Ashes series. It is easy in a couple of clicks therefore to find the
right set of stats, scroll down the left hand column and pick the stat
or record you wish to view. I know there is no ability to calculate
with these but I'm afraid that's well beyond my meagre abilities to
construct. For all this work I am very indebted to Marion Collin the
ICC's Statistician, whose database has been laboriously compiled and
whose software generates this multitude of combinations. For many
years she has been the sole official arbiter of the 'numbers' as far
as women's cricket is concerned.
But I have more recently come across another aspect to the stats in
this sport and that's on Twitter. One of the contributors - in fact
the major one by far - is someone hiding behind the essentially
anonymous 'handle' of Hypocaust. He or she not only provides some of
the milestones reached or about to be reached by players around the
world but also some fascinating asides - stats that I would never have
attempted to put together. Here are a few examples...
I am left wondering how many matches are played against what
opposition. Impossible to work out, of course, not least because you
would have to arbitrarily decide what were good or poor opponents. I
mention this because, fine a player as she was, Belinda Clark's
innings against Denmark, which tops the current "highest individual
ODI" score at the moment cannot really claim to have been made against
a bowling side with anything like the talent of Harmanpreet Kaur's
recent opponents in her huge knock against Australia, and yet Clark's
will remain sitting on the top of the list. We all know well enough to
treat numbers carefully. Stats, contrary to the popular saying, don't
lie but they can easily mislead.
When speaking to contemporaries I have more than once heard them
exclaim "You're not on Twitter surely". Well I am, and above you can
understand at least one reason why! If you have a fascination
(or even an obsession) with the stats and have a Twitter account, then
do follow this contributor!
With Hypocaust's permission I expect to be sharing some of his/her
other fascinating facts in the future.
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