Popped Collars World Cup

With the World Cup in Brazil drawing to a close this week, I feel the need to write a related blog post. The team can often be heard treating the hitting of sevens as a soccer scoreline (the singing of "one-nil... one-nil one-nil one-nil!" is often heard after the first such shot of a batting pair).
And so... using results from past "seven-hitting matches"... over the next 7 days, this blog will be reporting the results of a virtual "Popped Collars World Cup"!

How it will work:
Each match will be between 2 Popped Collars players, and the "score" for each "match" will be determined by randomly selecting one occasion that those two players have batted together, and looking at how many sevens each player hit during that pair.

If the players have never batted together, I will instead:
1. Use a GG match where they batted together, if one exists.
2. Use a random match which they played together, even though they didn't bat together.
3. If they have never even played a match together, a 0-0 draw will be declared.

During the knockout matches, ties will be broken like this:
1. "Extra-time" will be played by counting the number of fives hit in the same pair/match.
2. If still tied, a "penalty shoot-out" will occur counting most fours hit.
3. If still tied, highest total score during that pair/match will be the winner.
4. If still tied (or for batters who have never played a game together), the highest seeded player will go through.

Setup
The 16 players who have played the most matches for the Popped Collars are the participants:

Name	Matches
Xavier	222
Brad	203
Rian	182
Gareth	175
Sanjit	172
Andy	137
Matt	101
Julian	90
Jake	73
Dan (Sheahan)	35
Jim	28
Rajit	20
Andrew (Pearson)	15
Omar	13
Dan (Irvine)	10
Chris (Reid)	10

These players have been "seeded" based on average number of sevens hit per innings throughout their career. The seedings will provide the spectators of this tournament with an idea of how likely each player is to do well in their matches.

Seeding	Name	Innings	Sevens	Average
1	Rian	192	263	1.37
2	Dan I.	10	13	1.30
3	Jim	30	31	1.03
4	Pearson	17	17	1.00
5	Brad	216	211	0.98
6	Julian	91	86	0.95
7	Xavier	232	199	0.86
8	Jake	78	66	0.85
9	Andy	157	90	0.57
10	Sanjit	179	97	0.54
11	Dan S.	39	20	0.51
12	Gareth	184	85	0.46
13	Chris	10	4	0.40
14	Matt	110	36	0.33
15	Omar	13	3	0.23
16	Rajit	20	4	0.20

Using these seedings, the players have been randomly drawn into 4 pool (each pool has one of the top 4 player, one of the next four, one from ranks 9-12, and one of the bottom 4):

Pool A	Pool B	Pool C	Pool D
Rian	Pearson	Dan I	Jim
Jake	Brad	Xavier	Julian
Andy	Gareth	Dan S	Sanjit
Omar	Matt	Chris	Rajit

Just like the real thing, a group stage will be played, followed by an 8-team knockout series.
Each weekday (about 3pm), the results for one round of matches will be reported. Check back each day for updates. The final will be 'played' next Tuesday.


The Draw

Group stage

Pool	Match	Result coming...
A	Rian v Omar	Tuesday
A	Jake v Andy	Tuesday
B	Pearson v Gareth	Tuesday
B	Brad v Matt	Tuesday
C	Dan I v Xavier	Tuesday
C	Dan S v Chris	Tuesday
D	Jim v Julian	Tuesday
D	Sanjit v Rajit	Tuesday
A	Rian v Andy	Wednesday
A	Jake v Omar	Wednesday
B	Pearson v Brad	Wednesday
B	Gareth v Matt	Wednesday
C	Dan I v Dan S	Wednesday
C	Xavier v Chris	Wednesday
D	Jim v Rajit	Wednesday
D	Julian v Sanjit	Wednesday
A	Jake v Rian	Wednesday
A	Omar v Andy	Thursday
B	Matt v Pearson	Thursday
B	Gareth v Brad	Thursday
C	Chris v Dan I	Thursday
C	Dan S v Xavier	Thursday
D	Sanjit v Jim	Thursday
D	Rajit v Julian	Thursday

Knockout stage

	Match	Result coming...
QF1	A1 v B2	Friday
QF2	C1 v D2	Friday
QF3	A2 v B1	Friday
QF1	C2 v D1	Friday
SF1	Winner QF1 v Winner QF2	Monday
SF2	Winner QF3 v Winner QF4	Monday
3rd/4th	Loser SF1 v Loser SF2	Tuesday
Final	Winner SF1 v Winner SF2	Tuesday