Friday, 18 March 2005

Back on 28 April

As mentioned below, I am heading away for a summer holiday. I will be going here, where there will be no television, no radio and no internet. Hence, there will be no Mike on Cricket.

I will be back on Easter Monday to revel in the glorious victory of a resurgent New Zealand cricket team. Take care and I will chat to you all again then.

1 comment:

Ben said...

Hey, Mike's away for a month. Let's take over!

McMillan's luck runs out

The team for the third test against Australia has been named and features an interesting change; James Marshall has been drafted in, presumably to be tried in the opening spot, with Fleming being moved to number 4.

To make room for the second Marshall twin, McMillan has been bumped off the team. Rain in Wellington denied McMillan one last chance to save his position. But it may not have been enough anyway - his last innings would have condemned him if his run of poor form wasn't damning enough; after hitting Warne out of the park, he let himself be bowled around his legs with feet, bat, ball and dignity all headed in different directions.

This ability of McMillan's to be exquisite and dire in the same innings shows up in an interesting statistic. Apparently McMillan is the fifth most "unlucky" batsman. Of the shots that he plays that are not in control - where he has edged it, miscued it or let it hit his pads - he is dismissed 9.91% of the time. Interestingly however, a full 83.47% of his shots are in control, which remarkably is better than most of the "lucky" batsmen. Tendulkar for example is only in control of his shots 81.87% of the time.

The only other New Zealander that makes either the lucky or unluckly lists is Scott Styris, being just a little less unlucky than McMillan. Again his in-control percentage is very high at 86.42%, no surprise to anyone who has noticed his skill with the bat, but his dismissal rate to out-of-control shots is also high at 9.14%, due likely to his tendency to send up sitters.