The Blog Re-read: Part 7 (and Repetitive Overs)

Random fact: despite being published to the blog in December, this post (along with most others in the "re-read" series) was written a couple of months in advance. I did this so that I could fulfill the promise I made to the team of "a blog on each game-day for the rest of the year", and so that I'd have more time to work on something different for you.
But enough about that... let's continue with the blog re-cap (and some stats about Gareth's over of singles last week).

>7

Last week's match against Thrill Killers was indeed a thriller, and contained several instances of balls having more than 7 runs scored off them. Or, in the case of the final ball of the match, almost having more than 7 runs scored off it. Today's very brief blog entry is about scoring more than 7 runs off a single ball.

Popped Cup results - The Final

I had intended to put both of today's games in one post. But it turns out this needed its own entry. Read on to find out why, and find out who will be the Popped Collars World Champion.

Popped Cup results - 3rd/4th playoff

Julian Mellor and Andrew Pearson face off, looking to salvage 3rd place in the World Cup.

Popped Cup results - Semi-Finals

It's semi-final time!
Rian takes on Julian, and Xavier clashes with former player Andrew Pearson.

Read on to see the results...

Popped Cup results - Quarter Finals

Eight players remain in the Popped Collars World Cup. Number 3 seed, Jim Ragg, was the big casualty, finishing on the bottom of his pool. Gareth is the lowest seed (12) to advance, but he has to face his regular batting partner and the tournament favourite, Rian, in today's match.
Here are the quarter-final results...

Popped Cup results - Round 3

The results for round 3 of the group stage of the Popped Collars World Cup are here...

Popped Cup results - Round 2

The results for round 2 of the group stage of the Popped Collars World Cup are here...

Popped Cup results - Round 1

The results for round 1 of the group stage of the Popped Collars World Cup are here...

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"!

Debuts, comebacks, and the low ceiling

And we're back for 2014. I'll just do a couple of quick stats today that I've had in the back of my mind over the first few games of the year.

Xavier gets bowled. Brad and Rian score 8s.

Brad scored 8 runs off consecutive deliveries, and Xavier was bowled twice in one over. These two events sparked questions - and in the first case, further events - which form the basis of this week's blog. Probably the last for 2012...

Welcome to Kaleen

With the closing down of the National Indoor Cricket Centre, the Popped Collars have been forced to move. With dwindling players numbers, it was off to play the 6-a-side competition in Kaleen. Two weeks ago was the team's first match at the new venue - so here is a blog post full of small quick stats and stories from those first two matches.

Most Sevens, but still negative

....and we're back.

My stats database is up-to-date with all Popped Collars games (I have grand plans to eventually go back and put in what scorecards I have from pre-Popped Collars days, as well as the full set of GG six-a-side matches from a few seasons ago). I promise nothing much at the moment, other than to keep the Popped Collars scorecards up to date, and to a weekly "Stat of the Week" (SotW) post.

So let's get underway...

Last night, in our poorly batting performance again Tuff Stuff, with the result of the game already beyond doubt, Rian and Gareth went in at the end and just had a dig. As is often the case, there were many big hits - but also many wickets.

At one point, the pair went through 10 balls, containing 3 sevens and 4 wickets, prompting Andy to pose this week's question:

"What is the most sevens a pair has hit, and still ended up with a negative score?"

Unhelpful Sevens

Last night saw the return of Pearson to the Popped Collars line-up. It also saw the return of our old mate Rob, who hasn't set foot on an indoor court for many years now. But because we love him so much, today's post is all about Pearson. He started his innings last night with 3 sevens in the first 2 overs, and from the sideline, we urged him to "Go for the record!".

So he did. And he got out a lot attempting it. And so the question arose... who has the lowest score while hitting the most sevens.

Most In An Innings

During the one-season lifetime of our Friday night team, GG, there was often a need for our players to compete among themselves - because the opposition were not providing any challenge. The most common game was for the batters in a particular pair to see who could hit the most sevens in their four overs.

On the other side of the coin, Popped Collars, our "pro team", are occasionally excited about (or bagging out the opposition for) playing "pro-style indoor" - that is, hitting lots of safe twos.

So today I'm going to check out the most of each scoring shot that has been achieved by a batsman in an innings.

Rage analysis (bowling)

As a continuation from the previous post, we're now looking at which bowlers recover best from a bad delivery. What are people's stats on the ball after they get hit for seven?

There's some very interesting results here. First and foremost, it provides proof of something that we all knew already... The Brage doesn't work with bowling. After being hit for seven, Brad's average runs per ball is around 1.5x worse. It also shows that my theory of Sanjit's ability to recover after a bad ball only applied to batting.

The numbers that really stand out, however, come from X and G. They both have a negative average runs per ball after being hit for a so-called "maximum".

Don't foget, though, that the ball after a seven will usually be bowled to the opposite batsman to the one who hit the seven. So maybe this is saying something about the psychological factors surrounding watching your batting partner do well. Hmmm, sounds a bit deep and meaningful for this blog... so instead, here's a table of numbers:

Name	Runs/Ball overall	Runs/Ball after7	Compare (%)	Compare (+/-)
Xavier	0.58	-0.81	-139.4	-1.40
Gareth	0.75	-0.17	-23.2	-0.92
Andy	0.82	0.33	40.8	-0.48
Julian	1.24	1.14	92.2	-0.10
Rian	0.81	0.75	93.1	-0.06
Brad	0.95	1.38	145.4	+0.43
Sanjit	0.98	1.69	173.4	+0.72
Jake	0.98	1.71	174.1	+0.73

Gareth's self-confidence booster

The question of the week this week, was very simple. Gareth began by asking which bowlers had taken the most wickets for our team, and was disappointed to learn that Xavier and Brad led the way, simply because they have played the most games.

And so the question was refined: Which bowler has the most wickets per over?

A simple question... and so I generalised it, and shall investigate a range of questions of the form

Who [does something] [most/least often] per [unit of time/cricket]?

1. Who takes the most wickets per over?
It quickly became apparent that Gareth had a good reason for asking his question... he wanted to make himself look good. Here's the table of results

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
2. Who hits the most 7s per innings?
Here’s the sloggers. Or at least, the most successful sloggers. If only there were stats for ‘attempted 7s’

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
3. Who faces the most balls per innings?
With this question we’re revealing the strike-hoggers. The people who face more than their fair share of the 32 balls each pair gets when they go in to bat.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
4. Who gets the most extra turns at batting and bowling?
There were a few sceptics last week when Brad went back in to bat when we were a player short. And this stat gives justification to those people who can now see that our leader bowls and bats for missing players much more often than anyone else. Is this leading from the front and putting himself in the firing line – showing how it’s done with additional inspirational captains knocks? Or is it just abuse of power?

7 sevens. And more sevens.

A couple of weeks ago the Popped Collars racked up a big win (237-87), with only 6 players, over “6 & Out” (the team one of our occasional subs, Matt, plays for). After the game I noted in an email to team-mates a few records that we appeared to have set during the game. With my stats not up to date, however, I was unable to confirm that they were in fact records. I will do this now...

Potential record #1
Most sevens in a match by the team (14)
Status: Confirmed

Prior to this game, the most sevens we’ve hit in an innings is 12... and the most a team has hit against us is also 12... and they were both in the same game. Unfortunately for our opponents on that day (“Just 1 More”), they also fell victim to the most wickets we’ve taken in an innings (26), and we beat them 231-104.

Potential record #2
Most sevens in an over (4)
Status: Confirmed

Rian and Andrew (Pearson) not only slapped 4 of them off the final over of the innings, but in fact hit them from the final 5 balls of the innings (7,7,2,7,7). The only other time we’ve seen 4 sevens in an over was in the first game after our grand final win when we had a century partnership scored against us. In the final over of that partnership Sanjit get taken for 35 runs - including 3 sevens and an eight.

Potential record #3
Most sevens in a match by a player (7)
Status: Confirmed

Now this could be considered a bit dodgy by some, as Pearson batted twice in the match. But nevertheless, you can’t argue that hitting 7 sevens in a match is quite impressive. He hit 4 of them in his first bat, almost making our teams top score for the day, and then went in to bat a second time and racked up 3 more. The next best in a match (and also the equal-best in a single bat) is 4.

Potential record #4
Highest individual score without hitting a seven (38)
Status: Confirmed

While everyone else was hitting sevens, Xavier was taking the opposite approach. He hit 3 side-backs and 2 fives in his 38 runs, but never a seven. This beats the old record of 36 by 2 runs. The score of 36 has actually been made 9 times in Popped Collars matches, and 4 of those times have been seven-less.

Special mention here must go here to Andy, the owner of one of those old scores of 36 which I note still holds another, similar but more impressive, record. His particular 36 consisted of no back net scores at all! He faced:  3 dot-balls, 2 singles, 4 twos, 6 threes and 4 extras. The second best back-net-less score is 31.