David Leggat: Rating formula pie in the sky

Doug Bracewell. Photo / Getty Images

Opinion

Unless you are a statistician, a mathematician, a physician or an HR boffin, pies are for eating, not studying.

A few years back, Tasmania had a wicketkeeper of stout build who so loved his pies that he gobbled down a second helping while wearing his whites and pads, with gloves and floppy hat on the table beside him as his teammates waited for him out in the middle after the lunch break.

Now pies are in at New Zealand Cricket headquarters with news that the method of choosing national teams, men, women and age group, are to be done by breaking down players' worth in, er, bite-sized chunks.

Here are the relevant percentages which will help decide who makes the cut, and who misses out: 35 per cent significant performance; 25 per cent consistent performance; 15 per cent contribution to the team; 10 per cent fielding; 10 per cent fitness; and 5 per cent selectors' intuition.

This plan is the work of NZC director of cricket John Buchanan and his fellow Australian Kim Littlejohn, the national selection manager. Be confident it's not the brainchild of coach and former New Zealand captain John Wright.

While there have been dark mutterings since this pie dropped out of the NZC oven, it may be much ado about not an awful lot, with one major qualification.

When selectors are making judgments in team sports, they crunch relevant data. It is not necessarily made public and in many cases it is massively detailed.

The most extreme example may be Sabermetrics, the analysis of baseball based on numbers, first adopted in the late 1990s by the Oakland Athletics, a middling franchise who became regular contenders under their manager Billy Beane.

In reality what has been proposed by Buchanan and Littlejohn is simply putting down on paper in more specific form what has previously been done in less detailed ways.

Where it jars is the precise proscribing of the splits, and what constitutes the smallest wedge of the pie.

The breakdown seeks to remove the intuitive element, the ability of the selector (singular, for Wright is the selector, with Littlejohn his wing man) to back a hunch.

A few weeks ago Wright was talking about the selection of Doug Bracewell on the tour to Zimbabwe.

Wright reckoned he saw "a lot of upside" in Bracewell. Translation: there was much to like about his potential, even though his actual numbers did not positively demand his inclusion.

Bracewell took five wickets to bowl New Zealand to victory in Bulawayo, and did well in the shorter form games on tour.

Yesterday he thumped 73 not out off 79 balls to ensure a solid New Zealand first innings total against Australia A in Brisbane.

Under a straitjacketed system, Bracewell probably would not have gone to Zimbabwe.

Hunches can backfire and for a time New Zealand liked to take a young fast bowler on tours. Sean Tracey, Brian Barrett, Robert Kennedy and Carl Bulfin did not come off, but that's no reason to banish the notion.

There's a reason selectors are chosen. It's because there is a belief that their judgment is worth backing. Therefore, within reason, they must be given their head. Otherwise get a couple of students to throw numbers on to a computer and pick the national team on that basis.

The problem with statistics is they can be tweaked to get any result. When, for example, does the relevant period of assessment start?

Littlejohn has spoken of getting more accurate readings on individual performances. Five top/middle-order wickets in the first innings will be worth more than cleaning up the tail en route to an easy win.

Really? It takes a chart to figure that out? Best not get too wound up about this.

Littlejohn's job is to give Wright all the relevant information he needs for his deliberations.

The interesting part will be how much notice Wright takes of the numbers and how much he relies on what he sees, and his own knowledge and gut feel for who can cut it.