Rob Minto

Sport, data, ideas

Month: May 2015

Sport Geek #2: Novak no-brainer, Sterling saga, Blatter’s brilliance

TENNIS
Is this Novak Djokovic’s French Open? Whether it’s Rafael Nadal’s atrocious form, or Djokovic’s incredibly detailed preparation, it looks that way.

FOOTBALL
You might hate Sepp Blatter
, but he understands the world better than you, you irrelevant Westerner. Meanwhile, Qatar’s World Cup death rate is now over 60 per match, and Brazil’s 2014 legacy is already a mess.

English clubs need to learn to love the Europa League. The country may soon lose a Champion’s League place. Continue reading

PSG: liberty, fraternity, inequality

473809032Sport is inherently unequal. Talent and skills are not distributed fairly, and it would be a far more boring world if they were.

But when it comes to the wages that are paid to players, some leagues prefer a fairer system – especially in the US – and some are content with a less equal system. Some are downright ridiculous.

The data provided each year by Sporting Intelligence highlights the haves and have-nots by comparing average team wages in 333 teams across many major leagues. As ever, the American sports leagues are notable by their evenness. In the NFL, for example, the top paying team, the Miami Dolphins, pay an average annual salary of £1.37m per player. The lowest payers are the New York Jets, with £1.01m per player. That’s across 32 teams. The difference top to bottom is just £357,000.

Let’s look at some of the major European football leagues by way of comparison. The contrast and variation is astonishing. Continue reading

Sport Geek #1: genius, beauty and boredom

10 reasons why Barcelona won La Liga. You might think 1 to 9 are ‘Messi’, but there’s a lot more than that going on at the Nou Camp.

The beauty of Roger Federer’s tennis can cure relationships. And you thought you were a big Federer fan. Julian Barnes reviews the very strange Federer and Me by William Skidelsky. Continue reading

A new newsletter

I have decided to share a weekly wrap of interesting sports writing as an email newsletter.

It won’t have match reports or updates. Instead, it will be a collection of longer pieces, analysis, data-driven journalism and other quirky pieces, from around the web, across a variety of sports.

Any ideas, let me know – newsletter@minto.net

I hope to send it out every Tuesday. The sign up page is in the menu above, and below:

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Should KP be recalled to the England team?

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Update (May 15): Adam Lyth has now been called into the England Test squad and will probably make his debut against New Zealand.

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When a player hits 300-plus for their county, it’s hard not to take notice. But should Kevin Pietersen’s massive innings for Surrey get him back in the team?

He thinks so. He said afterwards:

“All I’ve been asked to do by the chairman-elect is to get a county and get runs,” said Pietersen.

“I’ve got runs, I’ve got a county and I do believe I’m good enough to play for England.

“All I can do is score runs, that’s it.

KP has been misguided and is confused, and here’s why.

This is nothing to do with that book (the one that trashed the ECB, former and current coaches and captains). It is quite simply that one innings isn’t enough.

If it was, then here are a list of people who would have been picked for England in the last 5 years:

Alex Gidman
Alex Lees
James Hildreth
Andrew Gale
Adam Lyth

All of the above players have hit 250-plus in county cricket. None have been picked for England’s senior Test side.

But if you look at the players who have scored the highest total runs in a county season, or had the highest average over a season (excluding overseas players and retired England players), there is a better chance of picked for the Test side. Adam Lyth would seem to have a better claim for a Test place then KP.

Highest averages
Year Player Mat Inns NO Runs Ave 100 50 Notes
2014 Adam Lyth 17 24 1 1,619 70.39 7 6 No England place
2013 Gary Ballance 15 22 1 1,363 64.9 6 6 Test debut Jan 2014
2012 Nick Compton 14 21 6 1,494 99.6 5 7 Test debut Nov 2012
2011 Nick Compton 14 23 4 1,098 57.78 2 6 See above
2010 James Hildreth 16 23 1 1,440 65.45 7 5 No England place

 

Most runs
Year Player Mat Inns NO Runs Ave 100 50 Notes
2014 Adam Lyth 17 24 1 1,619 70.39 7 6 No England place
2013 Moeen Ali 17 29 5 1,420 59.16 4 8 Test debut June 2014
2012 Nick Compton 14 21 6 1,494 99.6 5 7 Test debut Nov 2012
2011 James Taylor 17 32 3 1,602 55.24 3 10 Test debut Aug 2012
2010 Adam Lyth 16 29 0 1,509 52.03 3 9 No England place

(In 2011 Marcus Trescothick was the leading run scorer and had the highest average in county cricket, but had retired from the England team. In 2010 the most runs were scored by Mark Ramprakash – again, retired from the England team.)

Highest innings in season
Year Player Runs Team Match Date Notes
2014 Alex Gidman 264 Gloucs 09-Sep-14 No England place
2013 Alex Lees 275* Yorkshire 17-Jul-13 No England place
2012 James Hildreth 268 Somerset 31-Mar-12 No England place
2011 Michael Carberry 300* Hampshire 02-Aug-11 Test debut Mar 2010 (1 test), recalled Nov 2013, more than 2 years later
2010 James Taylor 206* Leics 29-May-10 Test debut Aug 2012 (after 2011 season, see above)

The selectors have been very clear in their methods – they reward consistency, not single innings. As it turns out, a recall isn’t going to happen, however many runs KP scores. Colin Graves (incoming ECB chairman) said the wrong thing (about KP having any recall chance), which was then taken the wrong way (regarding single innings).

But the KP recall bandwagon will get mightily awkward if he does keep getting runs and topping the average charts. Until he retires completely from the game, there will always be a question mark over Pietersen’s England inclusion.

(Data from ESPN Cricinfo)

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