New Zealand will use Mathematics to select players

[ahamedirshad123]

New Zealand cricket director John Buchanan reportedly plans to implement a system in which future national teams are chosen according to a mathematical formula rather than on selectors' hunches.

Selection manager Kim Littlejohn has confirmed that the selection of New Zealand teams from junior ages to Test level would be governed by a pie graph of performance "equation factors."

The "selection pie," leaked to the media on Wednesday, contains six criteria which will influence selection: significant performance (worth 35 percent), consistent performance (25), contribution to the team (15), fitness (10), fielding (10) and selectors' intuition (5).

Buchanan, a former Australia coach, was appointed director of cricket earlier this year and recently recruited Littlejohn. The previous selection panel, which had included former Test players Glenn Turner and Mark Greatbatch, was disbanded.

Littlejohn was not concerned that the selection formula had been leaked to the media. He said the new system had been created with input from national coach John Wright and New Zealand's six provincial coaches.

"What we are working towards is to have at least 60 percent of our decision-making backed up with objective data," Littlejohn said. "We are trying to move away from, 'We think he is a good player' to 'we believe he is a good player' based on this evidence."

"Where it is most useful is when we have to leave a player out of the team. We can point to one of those sections and pinpoint where they need to work. We can send constructive feedback with them back to their provincial coaches to go to work on their game."

Littlejohn said the "significant performance" criterion noted achievements such as centuries and five-wicket hauls. The "consistent performance" category would take into account batting and bowling averages, strike rates and economy rates.

"If your batting average has dropped from 50 to 35, your consistent performance will not be there," he said. "It is all about helping athletes be better athletes and giving themselves something tangible to work on."

[Genghis]

Regardless of what sort of mathematic formula you use, there will always be some sort of subjective criteria which will decide who plays.

Something like giving players a score for fielding - what is that based on? Number of catches? Or a score based on how good a fielder the selector thinks the player is.

In the end, this is more a method for the selectors to provide feedback to the players on what needs improvement when dropped from the team. In that aspect, it doesn't seem a bad idea.

[omidahomie8]

smart

[Liverpool_Faizan]

moneyball

[Justcrazy]

Idiotic..... numbers cannot judge talent.

[MMHS]

In US Baseball, Oakland Raiders & Boston Red Socks use saber matrix (A sort of 4 dimensional matrix, which factors the time as well) for building teams. This proved to be a very effective technic to develop a very good team within budget & expense optimization. On contrary, the same approach in football seems to be a big failure so far (Liverpool wasted £35mn on donkey Carroll, £20mn for Downing & £20mn for Henderson, based on moneyball. Initially I read it several times that how good a business it had been, not anymore, even before quarter of the season had gone).

Cricket is a game closer to baseball than Football, with lots of facts & figures, so I feel it could be applied for club/franchise level teams to optimize budget. Like an IPL franchise can efficiently use the allocated budget to build a team from global talent pool, who are finished products. But for National level, where you need to find new talents & nurture the talent available within your country, I am not sure it can be successful. Also, by this method, you can rank players at the age of say 29, with 10-11 years of past record; but what about 19 years old prodigies?

Wasim, Aamir, Sachin, or the latest boy Cummins probably would have started career 4/5 years later, but worst side ‘ll be a lot of ordinary players, milking the loop holes of First Class system ‘ll get into the team. I think Buchanan is still milking his fortune of managing an outstanding team. He was sacked by KKR & I don’t think was ever approached by BCCI, despite his open eagerness. Let’s see if they can get another Hadlee, MCrowe, Cairns, Fleming, or Vettory, at their starting age through this ingenious model of selection? I would have loved to work in an environment, where everything could be converted into numbers & %.

[shahrukh619]

NZ should hire W63 L35 then

[Random Aussie]

The idea of giving specific feedback to players who have been dropped is good.

Not sure about using it for selection. Our whole rise from rubbish team to number one was built on selection intuition.

[PakPosheeda]

So the whole NZ team is going to be dropped then!

[Watsupdoc]

How does one measure selector's intuition? :))

This might work, but I don't think it will. I mean a player's form is something you can't measure in numbers. It could change anytime.

[zaid65]

In US Baseball, Oakland Raiders & Boston Red Socks use saber matrix (A sort of 4 dimensional matrix, which factors the time as well) for building teams. This proved to be a very effective technic to develop a very good team within budget & expense optimization. On contrary, the same approach in football seems to be a big failure so far (Liverpool wasted £35mn on donkey Carroll, £20mn for Downing & £20mn for Henderson, based on moneyball. Initially I read it several times that how good a business it had been, not anymore, even before quarter of the season had gone).

Cricket is a game closer to baseball than Football, with lots of facts & figures, so I feel it could be applied for club/franchise level teams to optimize budget. Like an IPL franchise can efficiently use the allocated budget to build a team from global talent pool, who are finished products. But for National level, where you need to find new talents & nurture the talent available within your country, I am not sure it can be successful. Also, by this method, you can rank players at the age of say 29, with 10-11 years of past record; but what about 19 years old prodigies?

Wasim, Aamir, Sachin, or the latest boy Cummins probably would have started career 4/5 years later, but worst side ‘ll be a lot of ordinary players, milking the loop holes of First Class system ‘ll get into the team. I think Buchanan is still milking his fortune of managing an outstanding team. He was sacked by KKR & I don’t think was ever approached by BCCI, despite his open eagerness. Let’s see if they can get another Hadlee, MCrowe, Cairns, Fleming, or Vettory, at their starting age through this ingenious model of selection? I would have loved to work in an environment, where everything could be converted into numbers & %.

Correction: It is Oakland As and Red Sox.

I dont know how many people knows this, Billy Bean's right hand man for using the statistics to hire the players was a Pakistani American guy, cant think his name at the moment.

[Blitz]

I may be wrong, but haven't selectors been picking players using ''Mathematics'' for 150 years now? :13:

[kungfu90]

In Subcontinent they use financial maths to select players. :)

[MMHS]

Correction: It is Oakland As and Red Sox.

I dont know how many people knows this, Billy Bean's right hand man for using the statistics to hire the players was a Pakistani American guy, cant think his name at the moment.


Thanks, I hardly follow US games, apart from Basketball. I read few articles on Moneyball in some business journals, rather than sports (& in LFC news sites.)

[rhussain33]

Fawad Alam would be first pick based on numbers lol

[s2k]

He will destroy NZ cricket(whatever is left that is).He is a nutjob.Except when he was a coach of the legendary Aussie side(i dont know what he taught Warne Mcgrath Ponting Hayden Gilly etc)He has been a controversial failure.If mathematics would judge players Warne would never had played a second test.

[Ambi]

:79:

[leatherface58]

buchanan dont do to us what you did to kkr for Godsake !!! :facepalm:

[Ironcat]

Great idea, but test subject is the NZ team? :)

I mean, they should appreciate they can find all 11 players to play a test match.

[shokz1408]

thats interesting, its a good idea, will pick players based on their performances

[srh]

i like this idea for Pakistan; effectively ends corruption and nepotsim in selection

[Khan6575]

In US Baseball, Oakland Raiders & Boston Red Socks use saber matrix (A sort of 4 dimensional matrix, which factors the time as well) for building teams. This proved to be a very effective technic to develop a very good team within budget & expense optimization. On contrary, the same approach in football seems to be a big failure so far (Liverpool wasted £35mn on donkey Carroll, £20mn for Downing & £20mn for Henderson, based on moneyball. Initially I read it several times that how good a business it had been, not anymore, even before quarter of the season had gone).

Cricket is a game closer to baseball than Football, with lots of facts & figures, so I feel it could be applied for club/franchise level teams to optimize budget. Like an IPL franchise can efficiently use the allocated budget to build a team from global talent pool, who are finished products. But for National level, where you need to find new talents & nurture the talent available within your country, I am not sure it can be successful. Also, by this method, you can rank players at the age of say 29, with 10-11 years of past record; but what about 19 years old prodigies?

Wasim, Aamir, Sachin, or the latest boy Cummins probably would have started career 4/5 years later, but worst side ‘ll be a lot of ordinary players, milking the loop holes of First Class system ‘ll get into the team. I think Buchanan is still milking his fortune of managing an outstanding team. He was sacked by KKR & I don’t think was ever approached by BCCI, despite his open eagerness. Let’s see if they can get another Hadlee, MCrowe, Cairns, Fleming, or Vettory, at their starting age through this ingenious model of selection? I would have loved to work in an environment, where everything could be converted into numbers & %.

Oakland A's have not made the playoffs let alone winning the whole thing since 2006 and the only reason the Red Sox are successful is because they have the highest payroll along with the Yankees in Baseball.

You can assemble 10 geniuses to come up with formulas to improve performance but it all comes down to talent and determination if a team lacks these basic criteria they are bound to fail.

[The Muppets XI]

Interesting idea. Tho if its John Buchanan, NZ team should be more worried about the Deliverence style training camp he's most likely to send them on.

Wonder if this selection criteria was applied to the current Pakistan team - which players would be there? :)

[nazimcricket]

John Buchanan was blessed by the amount of talent he was surrounded by in the Aussie team. I have zero confidence in his ability to bring out the best in a team, least of all, through this wacky method of selection.

[Markhor]

Statistics are important, no doubt about that but sometimes the naked eye is enough to judge whether someone has what it takes.

[Buffet]

Comparing this NZ selection based on numbers to Moneyball is not justified. I have read the Moneyball and seen the movie because idea used in the book/movie is same we use while making investment decisions.

In Moneyball, we had teams like Yankee who has tons of money and could buy expensive players and then we had teams like Okalahoma which had limited budget. But both were supposed to operate as a business unit.

Billy was first to think as an investment manager while chosing the team. Goal was biggest bang for buck and have a team which works well without trying to buy superstats by speding 20% of their limited budget.

In NZ team, there is no restriction like what we had in Oklahoma team. NZ team can pick the best players without having to worry about total budget. This moneyball parallel can be drawn for IPL though.

So picking players based on hard data was only one aspect of Moneyball and other aspect was getting biggest bang for their buck. NZ team does not have other aspect to be compared with Moneyball approach.

Billy's rigth hand man was Paul DePodesta, native to Alexandria VA. Character name was changed due to various reasons.

[s2k]

buchanan dont do to us what you did to kkr for Godsake !!! :facepalm:

why did you guys pick up this nutter?

Hasnt he made some lawn ball player a NZ national cricket selector?

[chaiwala]

moneyball

Exactly my thoughts. I like it though, a new way to think for cricket.

[KingKhanWC]

Idiotic policy. Players are mostly selected on their current form, this can only been seen by watching them play. This is why selectors travel to grounds to view them in action.

[MMHS]

Oakland A's have not made the playoffs let alone winning the whole thing since 2006 and the only reason the Red Sox are successful is because they have the highest payroll along with the Yankees in Baseball.

You can assemble 10 geniuses to come up with formulas to improve performance but it all comes down to talent and determination if a team lacks these basic criteria they are bound to fail.


May be, it hardly matters, what happens in Baseball or Ice Hockey. Only thing that matters to me is that, those Football (Sorry Soccer) ignorant Yanks has made my LFC into a UK Franchise of FSE brand. Those idiots have spent so much on wrong players that I am afraid, the Hicks & Gillet days might come back. However, isn't B'R'Sox winners on 2 MLB in last 6 years, first title in 87 years in '06?

[zaid65]

May be, it hardly matters, what happens in Baseball or Ice Hockey. Only thing that matters to me is that, those Football (Sorry Soccer) ignorant Yanks has made my LFC into a UK Franchise of FSE brand. Those idiots have spent so much on wrong players that I am afraid, the Hicks & Gillet days might come back. However, isn't B'R'Sox winners on 2 MLB in last 6 years, first title in 87 years in '06?

Correction: It was first title in 86 years and it was in 2004.

[haroonrasheed320]

Idiotic..... numbers cannot judge talent.

what is the point of having talent when you can't get the numbers? :fawad