英国论坛
University of Salford(索尔福德大学)
所在地区:英格兰所在城市:ManchesterTIMES排名:98
一键免费快速申请文章正文综述详细专业照片新闻校友录已获Offer学生资料It's official - Lancashire were robbed of this year's cricket Championship.It's official - Lancashire were robbed of this year's cricket Championship.
Researchers at the University of Salford have produced a 'shadow' league table showing how, when lucky factors such as the toss of the coin and disruption from rain are removed from the equation, Lancashire beat Sussex to the title by over five points.
Professor David Forrest of Salford University and his PhD student Ron Dorsey studied County Championship matches since 1993 to determine the value of the coin toss to teams and the negative impact caused by the loss of play to rain.
Using their methodology David and Ron have shown that Sussex won three more tosses in the season than Lancashire and played nearly three full days of extra cricket, thanks to less disruption from rain. These factors, according to the statistical adjustments, were decisive in taking the championship to the south coast instead of Old Trafford.
Furthermore, as Durham got to play an extra 14 full days to bottom club Worcestershire, the new league table shows that instead of finishing second, the men from the North East would actually be nearer the relegation zone in sixth.
In their research paper, due to be published in the Journal of Sports Sciences, David and Ron suggest that the cricketing authorities should make several changes to the rules to improve the fairness of the league table.
These include removing the coin toss and, instead, having the away team decide who bats first. They also advocate rescheduling matches to feature a more intensive period of play during the usually drier months of July and August.
David said: "Part of sport's appeal is its unpredictability, but if the uncertainty is due to factors outside the field of play then this can damage the credibility of the game.
"What we're proposing is a system which minimises these factors and makes sure that it's the players who get the results and not lady luck."
