NEW - World Series Cricket 1977-78
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NEW - World Series Cricket 1977-78
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"How Out" - a new approach

Updated: Aug 26, 2024 (see bottom of article)

I have been playing a fair bit of Minden Cricket lately, much more so than I have in a long time. This is largely down to me replaying some Supertests with the new World Series Cricket pack that I finally finished earlier this month (a rambling report will follow soon).

While playing I have been reviewing some of the charts that come with Minden Cricket. One that was particularly calling out to me was the "How Out" chart, which has remained largely unchanged since Gary Graber created this fine game way back in the 1980s.

So to itch a scratch I have spent a little time relooking at Test match cricket statistics from the past 30 years. This in turn has led to the revised but totally unofficial, brand spanking new "How Out" chart which you will see below.

The chart mainly corrects the anomaly that approx. 27% of outs are Bowled when in fact the number since 1994 is 17%. It also gets the balance of catches taken in the field versus catches taken by Wicket Keepers right. And, finally, offers an alternate and (if I may say so) simpler way of assigning who took a catch. The later feature also conveniently adds to the chart the missing 0.5 or so % that players are bowled.

The details behind this much simpler chart are, er, a little detailed, but as ever with statistical games the fun is in the detail. For me at least.

Enjoy and let me know what you think via the comments on this blog post or via our Contact Us page, or even on my little Twitter feed.

 

And I have also tidied up the Extras chart, so for those interested here's another non-official update that better reflects more recent Extras data.

Update - Aug 26 - 2024

There's been a bit of chat on the Delphi Forum, so thought I would post my resonse here so folk can see some of the bg to the unofficial How Out Chart above.

You can see the Delphi thread here.

...

The stats that I gathered via Cricinfo's Stats Guru are as follows -- this is for all Test Matches from 1994 thru to start of August 2024:

  • Caught - Fielder - 41.71%
  • Caught - WK - 19.47%
  • Bowled - 17.03%
  • LBW - 16.88%
  • Run Out - 3.10%
  • Stumped - 1.70%
  • Hit Wicket - 0.10%
  • Handled the Ball - 0.01%
  • Obstructing the field - 0.003%
  • Retired - 0.01%
Obviously using 2d6 to determine the outcomes has its limitations in terms of the granular detail one can go down to, which is why there are multiple tables. The jump from Tables 1 to 2 to 3 and then 4 brings the % of events on the latter tables down and closer to the real world %s. For example by making Run Outs a 64% chance of happening on Table 2, brings the actual chances down to close to its real life occurence (i.e., there is a 5.56% chance of rolling an 11 on table 1, which then sends you to table 2 which has a 64% chance of having a Run Out -- not 100% correct, but close enough to a final % of 3.1% that it works well for an "unofficial" table).
The reason I decided to allow the conversion of the Caught Fielder = Wicket Keeper result to become a Bowled, was that the Bowler Outcome of 2, 3 and 4 on Table 1 amounts to a 16.67% chance, whereas the real life % chance was 17.03%. It's a bit of a cheat adding that extra 0.3% to the Caught Fielder outcome, but it does nudge the Bowled results a tad closer to the 17.03%.
If you were to reassign that outcome to Caught and Bowled instead (i.e., another possible Caught - Fielder outcome), then I don't think it would change the overall numbers.
In a way, that's the fun of these "unofficial" tweaks. You can play with the outcomes to tweak Minden Cricket to make it play and feel the way you want it too.
BTW I am currently searching Stats Guru to see if it's possible to determine the number of caught and bowled to see what the actual % of that happening for all outs is. Will report back if I find out!

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  • Darren on

    Thanks. For now I think I will leave this as “unofficial” but perhaps tidy it up a bit and put it in the Extras area of this site for people to download and use if they wish. I have also revised the Extras chart (not be be confused with the Extras area :-) ) and have just added it to this blog piece.

  • Paul Spencer on

    Good research! 17% only bowled in past thirty years. Interesting. Will this new chart be released in due course?

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