Third Ball: Score Must Change

After seeing Brad send down consecutive dot balls and have the next one smacked to the back net, Andy proposed that was something that seemed to happen quite often.

This week's blog will check out all sorts of details relating to "third ball". And after I made a point of saying the 'consecutive balls' stats that I did last time, it turned out that this was even more tedious. But whatever...



Let's start simple, and just count the number of "third balls" that each Popped Collars player has created in their bowling. Back in the day, at Weston, with double-score applying on the first ball of each skin, it was possible to create a third-ball by bowling a dot on this "power ball".

This table shows how many times a bowler has contributed to a third-ball scenario in three different ways:
1. Bowling two consecutive dot balls
2. Bowling a dot ball on a double-score
3. Bowling a dot ball which came directly before or after a dot ball bowled by another bowler (i.e. in the previous, or next, over).

Bowler	Two Dots	Double-score dot	One out of two dots
Andy	87	15	20
Brad	44	12	16
Gareth	38	11	15
Jake	33	11	7
Julian	38	2	11
Matt	14	1	8
Rian	86	19	17
Sanjit	54	9	10
Xavier	78	17	25

And now to the crux of Andy's question. What happens on third-balls?

The next table down is the player-by-player summary. The first column shows how many times they have bowled a third-ball. (Note this is not the same as the the last table, which showed when they bowled the dot balls - this time we see when they bowled the ball that the batters had to score off, irrespective of who bowled the dot balls that preceded it).

The other columns show the percentage of time that various things happen on the third-balls they bowl. Also note that this often adds up to more than 100% because it's quite common to bowl an extra and have the batsmen make a run as well. Especially on third-balls, when the batters will be looking for a quick run.

Bowler	Third-Balls bowled	Back Net %	1,2,3 runs %	Extras %	Wickets %
Andy	105	3.8	67.6	14.3	21.0
Brad	71	7.0	71.8	16.9	9.9
Gareth	53	13.2	67.9	1.9	18.9
Jake	48	8.3	68.8	2.1	20.8
Julian	44	13.6	50.0	13.6	22.7
Matt	18	0.0	94.4	11.1	5.6
Rian	112	4.5	71.4	3.6	20.5
Sanjit	62	4.8	64.5	16.1	17.7
Xavier	114	4.4	65.8	7.0	22.8

Those numbers are all well and good - but is it surprising that (for example) Julian gets hit to the back net on 13% of third-balls? Or does he always get smacked around that much?

Here's a simple comparison for you. This table shows the average runs per ball (RPB) that are scored from each bowler - off third-balls, and the total for their Popped Collars career. The last column gives the difference between those two numbers (negative means they bowl better on third-balls)

Bowler	Runs/ball (3rdBalls)	Runs/ball (Career)	Difference
Andy	0.37	0.81	-0.44
Brad	1.38	0.95	0.43
Gareth	0.81	0.80	0.01
Jake	0.71	1.02	-0.31
Julian	0.57	1.12	-0.55
Matt	1.33	1.27	0.06
Rian	0.38	0.63	-0.25
Sanjit	0.53	0.89	-0.36
Xavier	0.25	0.79	-0.54

So, perhaps Andy had a point when he asked about Brad getting carted. While G and Matt don't seem to care what ball they are bowling, everyone else has a significantly better average when the batsmen are under pressure to score (which is what one should expect)... But Brad is the exception. Somehow, batsmen don't seem to feel the pressure when they have to score runs off the captain: they score more runs than normal!

I theorise that it is Brage-related. With two dot-balls already bowled, Brad probably comes into these deliveries feeling good, feeling confident. There would be no Brage, and therefore a lesser performance. Thoughts?

If there's no good stat questions next week, I'll be telling you about the Popped Collars third-balls while batting.