But does he look like a Test player? Why selectors must juggle bias and stereotype

OLLIE WILLIAMS - CRICKETER YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR: We remember the beauty of the shots that race to the boundary, the celebrations of a milestone – and yet we relegate in our memory, the dropped catch when the batter was in single digits

^{National Selector Ed Smith, left, and Jos Buttler}

Alongside bringing England’s summer commitments to a close, the fifth and final Test against India also marked the end of Ed Smith’s first summer as National Selector.

Appointed in April with the remit to bring a new approach to selection, Smith has presided over two Tests against Pakistan and the five-match series against India, with 19 players appearing in an England squad this summer and 17 making it onto the pitch.  

Smith’s new approach, with a legion of discipline-specific scouts employed around the shires, and the players selected, has proved to be a headline-generating event itself throughout the summer. 

First there was consternation at the selection of Jos Buttler for the first Test against Pakistan. Despite his IPL exploits, Buttler had not played a first-class game in the preceding half year. However, this was nothing compared to the outcry that greeted Adil Rashid’s selection for the first match of the India series, given the legspinner had only been on a white-ball deal with Yorkshire for 2018.  

There were minor disputes and debates along the way as well, whether that be the decision to bat Joe Root at three, the inability to find a partner for Alastair Cook or the preference shown for blooding young players rather than calling on experienced county pros (with Dom Bess, Sam Curran, and Ollie Pope all aged just 20 at the time of their debuts). 

Smith is pictured in conversation with England captain Joe Root

After all the debate, have we actually learnt anything about England’s approach to selection? Six players (Anderson, Bairstow, Broad, Buttler, Cook, and Root) played in all seven of England’s matches, while Keaton Jennings played six and Curran, Stokes and Rashid played five – with this 10 forming the relatively stable core of the team (although with Cook now retired, Anderson and Broad moving towards the end of their careers, this stability is perhaps not as it seems). 

The remaining nine players selected in squads across the summer picked up between one and three caps each, with only the unfortunate Jamie Porter and James Vince (called up as injury cover) not making it onto the field of play.  

It is this second group that really highlight the inherent difficulty of selection, regardless of the approach you employ. This difficulty arises from the fact that selection is a predictive judgement, with the selector attempting to determine whether the player in front of them is destined for international greatness. 

Unfortunately, humans are not natural statisticians and as such, we rely on intuitive rules of thumb to support our predictions. While these rules of thumb are incredibly useful in everyday life, operating in the background without any fanfare, when applied to predictive judgements they tend to hinder success. This is largely due to the bias that rules of thumb introduces, resulting in our brains playing Jedi-like mind tricks.  

It is these biases that explain the events observed by Michael Lewis in Moneyball and further explored in his later book, The Undoing Project. In Moneyball, baseball coach Billy Beane (played by Brad Pitt in the film adaptation), operating on a shoestring budget, turned the Oakland A’s into World Series challengers by drafting players who flew under the radar of rival teams’ scouting departments. 

And the reason these successful players flew under the radar? Bias caused by a reliance on rules of thumb. Unfortunately, it is not just our American bat-and-ball equivalents who fall to this affliction.

England have given debuts to several young players this summer

Think of the phrase “they look like a Test player”.

While no selection is made solely based on this intuition, this judgement is based on whether the player looks like a typical Test cricketer – which is essentially the use of a stereotype to support an opinion.  

The problem with this intuitive approach is that it introduces bias. It results in instances where someone gets overlooked for selection because they don’t represent the ideal in mind or picked because they look like they should be good, rather than because they are. An example might include a better bowler being shunned in favour of one that has the stereotypical attributes or build of a fast bowler (although whether there is such a stereotype is a debate for another day). 

Another bias that creeps into decisions due to a reliance on rules of thumb is related to the noteworthiness of an event. In this case, more memorable events are given greater credence than those of less significance, which can result in unfair weighting. In turn this presents an inaccurate reflection of someone’s ability.  

This rule of thumb manifests itself in our remembrance of a great innings. We remember the beauty of the shots that race to the boundary, the celebrations of a milestone being reached – and yet we ignore, or relegate in our memory, the dropped catch when the batter was in single figures, the number of times he or she played and missed, or the run out which was narrowly avoided. 

None of this is to say that Smith or his fellow selectors are relying solely on gut instinct. In fact, his approach to selection seems to be almost designed to negate the impact of these biases, drawing on a range of expert scouts across the game, who each bring a different viewpoint to the table.  

And this is not to say that intuitive judgements have a solely negative impact. Much as Han Solo’s bad feeling tends to be unerringly well-timed and accurate, intuitive judgements by experts tend to also be correct. It is only under certain circumstances, when relying on intuitive judgement introduces biases, that the ability to make good decisions is reduced.

And in an age where reams of data and TV replays are available at the swipe of a finger, there is no reason for these biases be dominating the decision process. 

At the end of the day, whilst biases from rules of thumb introduce potential pitfalls for selectors, as Beane proved in his management of Oakland A’s there are potential riches to be found in tackling them head-on – a wealth of untapped talent, just waiting to be discovered.