Hitting Against the Spin: How Cricket Really Works

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Much of this book is, indeed, devoted to the greatest expression of the game (in my view) and there is much to learn here even for a student of the game, or at least someone who takes more than a passing interest. You might be surprised to also know how big a role data is already playing in decision making in cricket.

Some key takeaways were matchups, line and lengths for specific, bowlers and batsman it really showcases well how the stats help cricketers now optimise for success. An example looks at the importance, or not, of bowlers maintaining a good length as opposed to a full length. The book makes you look at cricket in ways most laymen wouldn't have looked at and has facts and stats that might stun you. Today we can track every ball to within millimetres; its release point, speed and bounce point are measured as are how much the ball swings, how much it deviates off the pitch, the exact height and line that it passes the stumps, and multiple other variables.Obviously there are some parallels to cricket and the statistical revolution really changed the game here so to see similar ideas be applied to my favorite game obviously interests me greatly.

At a time when women’s cricket is becoming increasingly popular, I would urge the authors to make the pronouns in this book gender neutral, and also to draw insights from the women’s game as well as the men’s game. I wouldn't recommend it if you didn't follow cricket or thought Geoffrey Boycott was a brilliant analyst but it started off well and kept my interest to the finish. The traditional opener at Arundel has long been dispensed with, sadly, but Kent will be one of the few counties to entertain the tourists. I'm a mild cricket fan, which is probably the minimum entry level for access to the book, but anyone who reaches that level will love the book, and for real cricket fans it qualifies as a must-read. Oversimplifying a bit - the book is about analytics in the game and how data helps identify certain trends that the naked eye misses.The editing is where this falls down, plenty of poorly-executed visuals with sub-standard labelling, or cases where two visuals could be combined for greater effect. Some of the findings are in line with conventional cricketing wisdom but add a lot of value with granular breakup of data. My one criticism is that the book is inconsistent in defining terms/acronyms, and some graphs are difficult to interpret because they’re insufficiently described. I’d like to see a second edition which fixed those issues and was slightly friendlier to the layperson. But charts and tables should be used to clarify and bring the data to life, but in this book every time I come across a new table or chart, I have to spend 5 minutes trying to work out what is going on - axes without labels, different shades of colour with no explanation.

Things like how batting first shouldn’t be a fait accompli and until 2014 was actually a losing tactic (on average), how neutral umpires caused batting averages of the best batsmen to increase and helped left handers, why left handers have it easier against pace, right handers against spin. For those brought up with the mantra that when a captain wins the toss he should either decide to bat immediately, or alternatively think about inserting and having done so then choose to bat, that is another part of the game that is deconstructed and then put back together again after the changing trends over time have been examined. Only fifteen years ago it would have been difficult to answer them – cricket was guided only by decades-old tradition and received wisdom.

They also explore the new world of franchise cricket as well as the rapid evolution of the T20 format. They analyse the unseen hands that determine which players succeed and which fail, which tactics work and which don't, which teams win and which lose.