The Blog Re-read: Part 4 (and Missing Games)

The next in the eight-part re-living of classic times from the past. In case you're wondering, I'm not just doing this bunch of posts because I'm being lazy (although that is part of it too) - there is a couple of interesting things to come at the end of it all. I chose to cover everything in exactly 8 posts for a reason.
Today we look through posts from the second half of 2012, along with the first classic game in 2013.

We began financial year 2012/13 looking at third dot balls, in multiple posts. This is something I feel should be looked at more often in the stats (even though its a pain to work them out) - I enjoy third-dot balls, both when batting and bowling. I also went and discovered that it's not uncommon for umpires to miss third-dots.

I took my first, and so far only (I think) request for stats from outside of the team.

There was also a blog looking at hat-tricks of the same wicket. This was something Brad requested as a stat a few weeks ago. I forgot I'd done it before.

I also enjoyed this period in the Popped Collars history - when we were at Lyneham, constantly short of players, and therefore short of money. We were getting no competition points despite consistently winning, and probably surprising a lot of opponents who would find themselves losing to the team who was on the bottom of the ladder, and short of personnel.

There were several other blogs around this time relating to being short of players, including a quick write-up about a classic win over the 4Skins while playing with just 6.

Being short of players eventually inspired a move to Kaleen's 6-a-side comp.

Many interesting things happened then:

• Andy Ragg left the team
• We played our 150th Popped Collars game
• We played a game against Shaw that we voted to exclude from the stats
• We won our first 13 games at Kaleen, setting a record winning streak

That winning streak was broken by a ridiculous match against the Gold Diggers, resulting in probably my favourite PoppedStats blog post of all time. Also probably the most confusing... which may be part of why I enjoy it.

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Mini-stat: Taking a break
Because I can't just go 8 blogs without having any actual stats, here's a little one for this week.

Rian is listed in the official line-up for tonight's double-header, playing his first game since June. His absence is by far the longest by any player who was considered to be a full-time team member throughout the break. Assuming he does in fact play tonight (I know Trompf won't believe it until it actually happens), he will have closed a gap of 140 days without a game for the Popped Collars.

The longest gaps ever between matches have, unsurprisingly, been by our occasional fill-ins

Player	Days between games	From	To
Stu N	1156	18-07-11	16-09-14
Chris R	949	20-06-11	24-01-14
Stewie W	949	26-07-10	01-03-13
Glocko	907	19-09-11	14-03-14
Pup	900	05-09-11	21-02-14

I was also going to list longest gaps by each of our regular players, but it's a bit tricky to make a meaningful list unless I go through and work out when they were full-time and when they were just filling-in. Omar, for example, has an 872 day gap between the last time he randomly filled-in and when he joined the team as a full-time player.

So instead, here are the longest breaks by our 5 "full-time full-time" players - those who have been regular team members since the beginning of the Popped Collars.

Player	Days between games	From	To
Rian	140	23-06-15	10-11-15
Gareth	63	06-12-10	07-02-11
Sanjit	49	various
Xavier	49	18-11-14	06-01-15
Brad	35	various

The longest break the team as a whole has ever had was 35 days, over the 2012-13 Christmas/New Year period.