You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Sport Statistics’ category.
FINA changed the rules on swimsuits on 1st January 2010. This effectively banned full body polyurethane swimsuits which had been blamed for the overwhelming number of world records in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2009 Rome World Championships. Nunzio Lanotte wrote a guest blog on this very subject and concluded that perhaps we shouldn’t worry since overall performances seemed to be continuing anyway. One thing that is only just becoming evident, however, is that records made during the swimsuit era may be difficult to break.
Well, it’s all over. And what an amazing day it was. It was exhausting trying to work out who was staying up and what the scenarios were. Here is what happened drawn as a polar time plot of the 5 teams that were in danger of relegation.
Figure 1. 1st Half of Survival Sunday: polar chart of the league table . Teams are identified by their colours with 19th place at the inside and 15th place at the outside. The numbers on the outside indicate minutes and the dotted line shows the relegation zone. (Tip - follow individual teams around the circle to see how they fared during the half.)
Survival Sunday is almost upon us and my earlier post on the number of scenarios appears to have stirred up feelings – see The Premier League: predicting who will go down (and the strange case of scenario no. 55). To recap, there are 5 teams separated by only one point who could all get relegated to the Championship. I calculated that there are 81 possible scenarios based on a simple win, draw or lose. I then worked out the percentage of the scenarios in which the teams went down (see Figure 1 below) such that overall the chances of relegation are Rovers 11%, Wolves 24%, Birmingham 48%, Blackpool 58%, and Wigan 67%.
The main criticism of this approach was that it didn’t take into account goal difference or the number of goals scored. In particular, it was easy to point out that Wigan, say, could significantly improve their chances by scoring a couple of goals at demoralised Stoke. So I decided to have a look at potential scores in the games on Sunday to answer the basic question:
What does my team have to do to escape relegation?
Figure 1. The chances of relegation based upon the number of scenarios out of 81 in which the team goes down.
As a Blackburn Rovers season ticket holder I can’t believe that it’s come down to the last game of the season. By 5.45pm on Sunday 22nd May 2011, two of five teams currently separated by only a single point will have been relegated from the Premier league (Table 1). Comments from mates like “you’ll be safe” or “you’re too good to go down” don”t help when it comes down to a single game that can make or break your season. So what are the chances of Blackburn – or indeed any of the bottom teams – joining West Ham by going down on Sunday?
- Table1. The Premier League Table 2010/11.
What do physicists think about when they’re running? I’m currently training for my first marathon (gulp) which gives me a lot of time to think. Running around Sheffield, most of the time I think about how unfair it is that there is another hill and wonder why it is that the wind is always against me no matter which direction I’m going in. Generally, when I’m running all the blood seems to flee my brain so mental calculations take an awful long time: here are just a couple that keep me occupied on my long training runs.
Although not an avid follower of winter sports, I noticed that the world record for the ski-jump was broken on the 11th of February. Johan Remen Evensen of Norway jumped 246.5 m at the Nordic Vikersundbakken ski jumping hill. The video below shows the jump itself.
The American science magazine; Popular Science recently posted an article regarding a new basketball sensor system. The system is able to track a player’s performance as they dribble, pass or make a shot, although from the article it is unclear whether this system is legal for use during competition or strictly training only.
Sensor systems in sport
Hawkeye is a familiar sensor system used for a number of sports, not only to govern the game (line-calling in tennis for example) but also to provide metrics and visualisations for a modern television audience hungry for stats. However, accurate multi-camera systems such as Hawkeye come at a great cost in terms of use and installation.
What is interesting about the new basketball sensor system is that it is contained within the ball itself. The company behind the technology, 94Fifty, is a startup from the University of Michigan and aims to provide an affordable coaching system for basketball teams at all levels.
The difficulty in embedding a sensor in a sports ball is that it has to be substantial enough that it won’t be damaged during the rigours of play, but also light enough that it does not affect the behaviour of the ball in any significant way.
The Adidas intelligent ball is an example of sensor integration into sport equipment - ruled out by FIFA
England celebrate in front of the 'barmy army' after retaining the Ashes for the first time in 24 years.
For those of you who don’t watch cricket, or even know what it is, it is often described to novices as an 11-a-side bat and ball game that lasts up to 5 days, sometimes ending in a draw. For cricket followers, though, a 5 day test match is a chance to immerse yourself in the ebbs and flows of cricketing tension and to discuss endless batting and bowling statistics.
So, to the Ashes – the pre-eminent cricket series played between England and Australia and dating back to 1882. We’re currently 4 tests into the 2010-11 series, England have won two tests, Australia one and one has been drawn. This means that, even with one test to go, England retain the Ashes for the first time in a generation. In four test matches of two innings for each team, England have scored around 2,000 runs with batsmen getting anything from zero to a massive 235 runs (Alastair Cook in the Brisbane Test).
Now, cricket is an intensely strategic sport. The decision of whether to bat or bowl after the toss of the coin on the first day can decide the whole series. And that’s just the start of it: how do you deploy your fielders; when do you use your spinners or your seam bowlers; how will the state of the cracks in the pitch affect the bounce (I’ve supervised not one but two PhDs in this area)?
So, how surprised was I to find that all that has gone on in the Ashes down the years can be boiled down to one law – Benford’s Law, first postulated by Simon Newcomb just one year before the first Ashes series 130 years ago?
Introduction
In some spare time a few years back I began to compile a record of patents relating to cricket bats. I now have a near definitive record for all patents published. Analysis of this data threw up a number of trends and notions around the inventiveness and capacity to invent in cricket playing nations. Some of these are instinctive, and some are revealing.
Bear in mind that this is a brief analysis of patents published. It does not include ideas and inventions or otherwise that were never patented, of which there must be many. The data provided here shows how human invention reveals itself in cricket bats, and I make a connection to their countries of origin. Not being a historian or social scientist I will leave more detailed interpretations and analysis to those with the knowledge to do so. I hope that any who do have this knowledge will share it and improve my own historical knowledge around cricket and creativity.
In total there has been (at least) 107 cricket bat related patents published since 1884. On-line records show 100 patents going back as far as 1894. An additional 7 have been found through research that date from 1884 to 1891. There may be a few more published patents hidden in the archives, although this is unlikely to be more than a handful.
wiredchop
leonfoster
theclownshoes
David Curtis
stevehaake
drdavidjames
hdriscoll
joemcafield
engsportguest
sheffieldbullet
