Football transfers and corporate M&As go out of fashion?

In football signings there is a mathematical rule: three out of five fail... Like corporate takeovers, football transfers create turbulence and uncertainty. Often a player who succeeds in one setting fails in another. Economist Stefan Szymanski has shown that what clubs spend on transfers bears little relation to their performance in the league. Net outlay on transfers explained only 16 per cent of their total variation in league position. By contrast, the correlation between a club’s wages and its league position was about 90 per cent, averaged over about 15 years. Wages buy victories; transfers don’t.

(HT: Simon Kuper in FT)

Analyzing India's Cricket Debacle - A Black Swan Event?

I have been thinking of posting this all through India's disastrous recent cricket tour of England. It was Chris Dillow's excellent post about cognitive biases in football that finally got me around to writing it.

The dismal performance of India's cricketers has been variously attributed to IPL, England emergence as the successor to the great West Indian and Australian teams of the past forty years, India's "club-side" like bowling attack and the inability of its batsmen to cope with the swinging ball, and so on.

Without going into the merits of each of these, if we view this performance in its true perspective - the sheer magnitude of the defeat, the recent relative performances of both teams, and an individual assessment of the players from both sides who played in the series - none of the aforementioned explanations appear convincing.

Consider these. India's 4-0 defeat, apart from being its worst ever against England in 15 series there, was also its worst test loss margin ever. In fact, even the great West Indies, with all its great bowlers and batsmen, or Australia of the last two decades, could not inflict a test defeat of such magnitude, even in series with more tests. Undoubtedly much weaker Indian teams, both in batting and bowling, have performed more creditably against far better teams than the current English team, even in conditions atleast as adverse as that in the recent series. A logical performance-based explanation would lead us someway down the conclusion that the current English team is among best ever cricket team or conversely this Indian team is among the worst ever team assembled by the country!

In the build-up to the series, both teams had equally impressive recent test records. If anything, India's performance was superior, both in terms of the fact that its successes were for a longer period of time and was against slightly better opposition. The No 1 test ranking was a just reflection of India's superiority. Apart from its big success in Australia last winter, England's recent victories have been against the lesser teams (nothing in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India, and South Africa).

Interestingly, it needs to be borne in mind that the same set of English bowlers have played in all the last three test series between the two countries, two of which were in England, and two of which were won by India and one was drawn. James Anderson (in four) and Stuart Broad (in two) led the English bowling attack on these tours. This brings us to the English bowlers themselves. While Anderson is arguably one of the finest exponents of swing bowling in friendly conditions today, his place among the greats of swing bowling is questionable. Stuart Broad's place was itself under threat, though it can be argued that his best years may be ahead. Take out the performance of the last one year, and the averages speak for themselves.

Man to man, given the fact that Graeme Swann was hardly a factor in the first three tests, the South African attack of Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel, against whom the same Indian batting line-up fared with great distinction less than a year back, is far superior. In terms of every imaginable measure of a bowler's art, Dale Steyn is far superior to James Anderson. Morne Morkel is similarly superior to Stuart Broad. Although England's third seamer, Chris Tremlett or Tim Bresnan or Steve Finn, is superior to South Africa's, the added presence of Jacques Kallis evens up things on this front. So, if South Africa's bowlers are superior to the English bowlers, there is something amiss about attributing the extraordinary English performance to the excellence of their bowlers.

I have three explanations for the triumphalism of English cricket writers,

1. Statistical coincidence - As Chris Dillow writes, events occasionally turn out such that one team enjoys the rare confluence of all fortunate factors, while the other team suffers the exact opposite. England had all its players playing at the peak of their form and free from injuries (and given their otherwise normal averages, it cannot be denied that England enjoyed one of the rare runs of all players being in great form), conditions favorable to its bowlers, its batsmen facing a weak and demoralized bowling attack, and so on. India had exactly the opposite - the injury toll, even with IPL workload, and the near complete batting failure, being inexplicable.

And once, the coincidence of factors align in such comprehensive manner, and one team starts to suffer, it is more likely that its confidence will deplete just as fast as that of the other will rise. A self-fulfilling spiral is triggered off. A statistical outlier will then get mistaken for something else.

2. We live in the present - The stellar performance of the same English bowlers, who not far back were whacked by all and sundry in the cricket World Cup (admittedly there is difference between test and one-dayers, but not so much as to merit such differential - Morkel and Steyn hardly suffered such consistent punishment even in one-dayers), raises the issue of how we should assess modern day cricketers.

The amount of cricket modern cricketers play means that their careers are more likely to be short and spliced with injury or fatigue interruptions. In the circumstances, there is a strong case for assessing players based on their current form. Given the competition and standards, even lesser mortals (say, Time Bresnan or Chris Tremlett) playing cricket today are likely to have a streak of great form for some period of time. Then law of averages catch up and they fall back to their mean career trajectory. Only the great players, and there appear to be only a handful of true greats playing now, can sustain their high-level performance for years.

3. Availability Bias - The 3-1 victory over Australia in 2009-10 was easily the greatest cricketing achievement for England in nearly four decades, if not more. It was preceded and succeeded by consistent performances by the team, albeit, as aforementioned, against the weaker teams. The whitewash of the World No 1 Indian team on top of all this naturally reinforces the positive feeling about the team and therefore the impression of an all-conquering team.

In fact, this is classic availability bias, wherein the immediate recollections of the team's performance gets disproportionate importance in the overall assessment of the team. The immediacy of the string of these successes, amplified manifold by modern media coverage, gave rise to the impression of an all-conquering team.

None of this is to denigrate the English achievement nor condone the pathetic performance of India. It is only to fill in a sense of perspective to the emotion charged reporting that dominated the richly deserved triumph of the British team.

Spin and Tennis Ground Strokes

The most amazing, some would say frightening, thing about modern tennis is the ferocity, wickedness and consistency of groundstrokes. This description is very appropriate,

"Again and again one player would hit a ball so hard and at such an effective angle and so deep into the court that it was obvious the other player couldn’t reach it. Then the other player would reach it–and hit another irretrievable shot that was retrieved and returned. The athleticism of these players is almost inconceivable... Their shots don’t merely dive hard onto the court. They often curve sideways as they dive and then explode from the bounce with sideways motion... When the ball bounced, it would skip not just up (flatly, because of the underspin) but jerk sideways toward the sideline — and away from the player who was, if you did this right and hit the ball deep enough, on the run and trying to hit the ball on the short hop."

The video below is an excellent illustration of this stunning combination of power and skill.



As David Dobbs writes, technology has played a significant role in this transformation in the nature of tennis groundstrokes.

"The co-poly strings in use today — which spread through the pro game only over the last decade or so — generate more spin than ever. They do so because they’re more slippery than prior string designs. Because the strings easily slide across one another, they can slip back and then snap back to position — all while they’re grabbing the ball — to create more spin... Thus Nadal, Djokovic, and their peers can hit the ball harder than ever and still generate enough topspin to bring it down into the court. Nadal in particular generates enormous topspin — an average of 3200 rpm, and as high as 4000... This is a huge jump over the spin rates of even his modern peers."

See this excellent Times video which illustrates how Nadal generates his topspin. Incredibly, Nadal's average topspin of 3200 rpm is much greater than Federer's 2700 rpm and double Samparas's 1700 rpm.

Assessing Roger Federer's clay court legacy

Roger Federer's loss in the just concluded French Open finals will naturally ignite the ususal round of questions about his competence on clay. Critics will argue that this is further proof of the fact that he does not belong to the top rank of clay court players of all time.

Now let us examine this claim against the weight of facts. Since 2004, Federer has lost at Paris before the finals to just three players, all of whom were exceptional clay-court specialists. In 2004, he lost to three-time champion and arguably the best clay court player of his time, Gustavo Kuerten, in 2005 to the great Nadal, and in 2010 to two-time finalist (and at the time, red-hot on clay) Robin Soderling. Underlining his consistency on clay, in the past eight years Federer has entered the finals five times, won once, and lost four times (all to Nadal). His record, atleast in terms of finals and consistency on Parisian clay, is bested only by Borg and Nadal.

None of this would speak of a man whose competence on the red clay is questionable. In fact, his consistency alone should place him alongside all the great clay-courters of the open-era, like Guillermo Vilas, Borg, Wilander, Lendl, Courier, Kuerten, and Nadal. Further, his performance on his less favored surface should also be seen against the relatively poor performance of the other great non-clay champions like McEnroe, Becker, Edberg, and Samparas. So why the controversy?

It can be partially explained by a cognitive bias to which human beings are vulnerable - representativeness bias. It refers to the phenomenon where people evaluate a hypothesis (or its probability) by considering how much of it resembles readily available and salient data as opposed to using a Bayesian calculation.

People evaluate great champions by their wins, not their losses. In Federer's case, there are several factors that amplify the bias. Not only has he lost four finals, he lost all of them to his great opponent Nadal, who has won six. Nadal is the unquestioned clay court champion of his time, probably of all time. Federer falls terribly short in comparison to Nadal, atleast on clay. Further, people also compare his performance at French to the other Slams, where he has won 15 times. He has won on grass and hard-courts, despite Nadal. Though it only means that Federer is more comfortable and more competitive on these surfaces, people construe it as proof of his weakness on clay.

In conclusion, Federer may be a lesser player on clay, but less stronger and consistent than only two others!

The third batting power play and game theory!

One of the interesting debates on the sidelines of the Cricket World Cup relates to the timing of when batting team captains should use their third power play (PP) of five overs. The third PP, to be availed at the request of the batting team, imposes a restriction that the fielding team can have only three fielders outside the thirty yard circle.

The dilemma for batting captains is to use it earlier, say in the 30-40 over period, or preserve it for the slog overs. Apart from the argument that since the ball is changed in the 34 th over (and since a harder ball is easier to hit), it may be effective to take PP early, there has not been much analysis of the issue. However, a simple balance sheet of the costs and benefits of both alternatives to each side reveals that the choice is not as hard as it appears.

The benefits for the batting side are several and significant

1. With or without field restrictions, slog overs are a form of PP in themselves, atleast from the mental frame of the batsmen. It may therefore be more effective to take an early PP and get more runs earlier than otherwise would have been the case. The batting team effectively gets two PPs! The batting team can also carry the momentum on to the slog overs - the bowling side will have to mentally recover after the PP.

2. The bowling side is forced to call on its best bowlers much earlier than they would have preferred. Typically, the best bowlers have three spells - opening burst, slog overs, and a containing or wicket searching spell in the middle. If the PP is taken in the slog overs, it coincides with the bowlers final planned spell. However, an early PP, especially if the bowler has already completed his middle spell, can wreck the best laid plans of the bowling captain. Forced into dividing their ten overs into four spells, the best bowlers will have less overs for the slog.

3. Even without field restrictions, slog overs generally yield more runs. The incremental benefit, in terms of runs scored, with PP restrictions are not likely to be substantial. However, in the earlier overs, without field restrictions, batting sides are likely to score only modestly (3-4 runs an over in an average scoring match and 5-6 runs an over in a high scoring one). The incremental benefit of early PP is therefore significant.

4. Finally, the harder the ball, the easier is it to strike. Since the ball is replaced in the 34 th over, it is surely more sensible to opt for an early PP.

The negative side of the equation for the batting side is the risk of losing wickets in the PP and being left with limited fire-power to take advantage of the slog overs. However, this is more a question of the batsman's judgement of the PP situation, an issue of mental orientation. An element of representativeness bias in the batsman's mind anchors the third PP to slog overs.

It needs to be borne in mind that batting PP are not slog overs. In slog overs, batsmen throw caution to the winds safely in the knowledge that the end of the innings is near. But early PPs are followed by more overs. The risks being taken need to be weighed accordingly.

Consider this 2X2 matrix of the two alternatives - early and slog overs PP - from the perspective of the batting and bowling sides.



As can be seen, the early PP is the dominant strategy for the batting side - for the batting side, its benefits are singificant while for the bowling side, the costs are just as high!