Statistical eyes on Wallace at Derby

By Andrew Hignell

Cricket is a game which delights statisticians and mathematicians in almost equal measure, and more than a cursory eye will be kept by the number crunchers on Glamorgan’s LV=County Championship match against Derbyshire, starting on May 15, and in particular the scores of the Welsh county’s Mark Wallace.

Last summer in the match between the two counties at Derby, Glamorgan’s former captain Alviro Petersen recorded a king pair, while in the match between the two counties at the SWALEC Stadium earlier in 2012, Wallace - the current Glamorgan captain and a player who amassed more than 1,000 first-class runs last summer - also recorded the first pair of his career. Remarkably, Wallace's first innings nought was also a golden duck, meaning a highly unusual sequence in which a Glamorgan captain had been dismissed first ball in three successive Championship innings against the Peakites.

Thanks to Dr Pelham Barton of Birmingham University, I have been able to check up on the statistical probability of any batsman recording a pair in a given match. According to Dr Barton, any player has approximately a 60 per cent  chance of batting twice in a match and, conditional on batting twice, his chance of a pair is about 1.4 per cent.
 
The chances of recording a pair against the same opponents in successive seasons rises enormously, although there have been examples in recent years involving cricketers from both Derbyshire and Glamorgan. For example, in 2004 and 2005 David Harrison, the Welsh county’s former seam bowler, completed successive pairs against Hampshire at the Rose Bowl, while back in the 1990s Karl Krikken, the Peakites keeper, completed successive pairs against Yorkshire at Chesterfield in 1991 and at Harrogate in 1992. In addition, Paul Aldred, the Derbyshire seam bowler, also made successive pairs against Lancashire in 1995 and 1999, with both occurring at Derby.

So for those attending this week's game at Derby, when Glamorgan meet Derbyshire, if there is a cheer from a certain quarter when Mark Wallace gets off the mark, the reason – I hope – is now perfectly clear!


Date: 14/05/2012 16:45:49 by Andrew Hignell
In: Today | Glamorgan | Derbyshire |