It costs about $30K a season for the WACA to run the manual scoreboard at their cricket ground in Perth. The scoreboard is far from an aesthetic masterpiece but it has some charm and it reminds us of the modern cricket contest: commercialisation vs ritual.

Inevitably, the scoreboard will make way for a digital substitute that will swirl advertisements across a facsimile of the traditional display. When it does, they’ll be able to dispense with the six people that work there. But the progress of technology is uneven and it respects the entrenched interests in the hierarchy. Take for instance the prestigious position of ‘Selector’. A national selection panel choses each national team as it has since the bears were batting.

Why do we use such a subjective system? That system clearly favours older players over new. We know that overwhelmingly, performance declines as batsmen reach their mid-thirties, but selectors tend to keep people in the team once they’re there. Presumably because of personal attachments and bias. Science tells us that visual acuity declines with age, though some individuals are more affected than others. Reflexes also decline with age. Fortunately, nature has a way of informing us when this happens; cricket statistics.

It would be easy to imagine an algorithm that ranks batsmen and bowlers. This could be based on a ten match rolling average but be finessed to include career average and performance on different grounds. (Actually, comparing the current 10 match average and career average yields interesting analytics).

The worst performing batsman gets dropped every match (say). And the worst performing bowler gets dropped every match.

This system has the great advantage of removing all subjectivity; all favouritism. Forget all that stuff about ‘he’s a champion and a great score is just around the corner’. Institutionalise a regular turnover of personnel so that a team is not suddenly full of 38 year olds who lose form at the same time (looking at YOU, India).

You might say subjectivity is necessary to account for teamsmanship and I would say PHOOEY. You might say it’s necessary to allow character to be taken into account and I would say that it’s only a factor in unusual circumstances. Anyway, you might design a mechanism that allows the peer group to influence decisions in that area.

Shortly after one team adopts this system, which I would call Solomon, (after the famous West Indian batsman who threw out Ian Meckiff in the Tied Test), the rest would quickly follow. In the case of Australia, you’d dispense with five selectors. They cost more than scoreboard attendants.

A footnote:
The slow ritual of the twelfth men carrying the drinks is gone; replaced by dudes on Segways with giant Gatorade inflatable bottles strapped to their backs. It’s as out of place as the cameramen scurrying on to the field like intruding insects. It’s as vulgar as the visual assault of the sponsor’s logo on every vertical surface and the grass the game is played on. Who killed off the stodges of yesteryear and replaced them with commercial administrators bereft of style and spine? And where are those administrators when infestations of drunken nobs ruin the atmosphere for those unfortunates near them? Sitting in the Members’ Pavilion? Had I the power I would have evicted a hundred or so drunks, to the satisfaction of the thousands seated around us. Nice people, Australians, but they should learn how to behave in public.

Photo: thepurpleempire

Umpiring changes in the game of cricket have been pretty much uniformly praised. The field umpires can refer decisions to a third umpire, who is off the field and has the luxury of watching television replays. Teams can now challenge an umpire’s decision, much the way as tennis players can challenge line calls.

Better decisions and a reduction in subjectivity; that underminer of trust.

High time some objectivity was introduced into the selection procedure. When a team performs badly (not thinking of any team in particular) the population agonises about whether or not certain players should be dropped, to make way for new blood. Decisions about blood are made by a selection panel of former players and are intensely subjective. Remember that selectors are people who know some of the players personally; some not. Have seen some bat and bowl frequently; some less so.

Questions of loyalty arise and the decisions affect livelihoods and careers. It’s a political process and a nasty position for the selectors. Empirically, there is a history of retaining good players for longish periods after their Best-By date. Teams that perform well are seldom changed. Commonly, this results in a sudden decline when two or three good players retire. A period of re-building follows.

Here’s some free beer: why not develop an algorithm which takes the subjectivity out of the process? Do you really need a selection panel? All decisions could be made on form, taking into account relevant history and recent history over a wide criteria range.

Such a system could, for example, remove the lowest ranking batsman and bowler in each match. Although this would change the nature of ‘team’, it would institutionalise renewal and introduce a level of fairness that would do the game credit.

Starting with a cricket theme, we are giving viewers the chance to evict television personalities, programs and executives.

As the graph says, SMS your victim’s number or enter it on the web at m.smspoll.net

Cruel. But fair.

One vote only! By the way, SMS votes are at your normal SMS rates, not at premium rates. This is how we roll.

Terrific event. Two star performances: Michaella Krajicek and Hawkeye.

The Hopman Cup was the first ITF tennis tournament to allow players to invoke the Hawkeye system to adjudicate close line-calls. There was full on acclaim for the implementation of this technology which removed the acrimony common when linesmen made human errors. Hawkeye will spread to Grand Slam tournaments pretty quickly. I’m thinking Wimbledon will be the last to adopt it. Cricket administrators! Get with it! LBWs! The Snickometer!

I have one suggestion for the Hopman Cup. About mixed doubles: it’s great to see both sexes on court enjoying themselves but men serve harder and hit the ball harder than women. It can be an unbalanced contest. If the team receiving service changed sides after each point it would be possible for the girls always to serve to the girls and the boys to the boys. This would remove the main disparity; when men serve to women.

The Hopman Cup has the potential to be more popular on television than a Grand Slam event. Just needs a little fine-tuning.

Commentators at the second cricket test at Edgbaston (you know, near Baston) could hardly contain themselves after the English batsmen hit 10 sixes on the opening day. This was in part the result of outstanding batting but was also due to the use of closer boundaries. I assume this has come about for player safety and security reasons but I think administrators should note the increased excitement levels produced.

The crowd love a six, and moving the boundaries in a little gives the batsmen more incentive to hit the ball in the air. This much increases the appeal of the game; have no doubt. The purists will resist a permanent change because it will make statistical comparisons between today’s players and previous generations difficult. Statistics are one of the games joys but because the game now faces such competition for spectators and sponsors, I think it’s a sacrifice worth making.

There’s a bit of a sports theme running here at the moment folks. Been talking to my brother Ben, who’s also a cricket lover, about the present difficulties of the WACA and he had this comment:

The problem for the WACA is that they have an unused resource during winter. They tried to secure the Rugby Union franchise but were unsuccessful and in truth the ground is not well suited to football. It would be better if they used the ground for cricket in winter too. Our winters are dry enough to allow this.

Run a novelty competition or promote women’s cricket or do celebrity cricket matches like pro-am golf tournaments. Your strength is that you are a fine facility for cricket. Just be good at that and use your ground to promote the sport all year round.

Went to see the Pakis play WA at the WACA yesterday; first time I’d been to the ground in a long time. The redevelopment has the place looking very smart; I liked the use of the flat grassed area kids can use to play cricket while their parents watch the serious stuff.

The match was poorly attended (maybe 150 in the crowd). Attendance is also a problem for Pura Cup matches; it’s no secret the game is in trouble at this level. So what can the cricket administrators do about it? Here are a few marketing thoughts.

1. You can’t expect people to come to see an event in the same format as a test match but with lesser known players. You need to differentiate the game. You need to offer the public a different format.

2. No crowd = no atmosphere. There is no shame in giving away free tickets and that’s what you should be doing in large numbers. It’s already cheap ($8) and you need to take maximum PR advantage of that. It’s not that people can’t afford the money, it’s that they can’t afford the time! Who can take a whole day off to watch the cricket? But the idea of buying a full day ticket and then wasting 2/3 of your money is anathema. You should be able to buy a session ticket for $3. This could be done on an honor basis (after all, it’s cricket).

2. You need to generate more involvement. Get up close and personal. It’s the character of the players that engages the crowd. The characters need to be magnified for this to happen. The day I went, Shoaib Akhtar was bowling. One of the fastest, meanest dudes in international cricket. Not having a pair of binoculars I went home without seeing his face! You need to hire out binoculars or better, have coin-operated/credit card operated binoculars on tripods around the ground. This is more involving than a big screen because YOU decide what you’re looking at. Cherchez le sponsor.

3. Amplify the sounds! Why can’t we hear what umpires say when they give a decision? Why can’t we hear the frustration of players and their encouragements to each other? Yes I know this is something that would need to be negotiated with players but they need to understand it will improve the popularity of the game with strong flow-on benefits for players. Standards of behaviour would also improve. Easier to introduce at this level than at test level.

4. Lunch entertainment. Currently kanga cricket. No introduction, explanation or commentary. Not very compelling. There is a commentator during play but I think he said ten sentences during the time I was there (3 hours). During lunch, he could have been giving us cricket anecdotes or selling us seats to the forthcoming match.

What about some outfield catching at lunch? Or some catching using slips machines? Or invite the crowd on to the ground (!) to play french cricket with tennis balls.

5. Themes. Introduce some variation. First day’s play: Music. Music and percussion in the crowd. There are hundreds of buskers in Perth. Why can’t they entertain people during play? Second day’s play: Whites. Everyone in the crowd to wear white. Third day’s play: ladies’ day. No men admitted. Fourth day’s play: Anyway, you get the idea.

6. Merchandising. When Pakistan play, why don’t you invite all the people importing clothing from Pakistan to run a bazaar in marquees around the ground? There is a misunderstanding about merchandise in the sporting world. People think it’s about locking up an exclusive licensing arrangement. It’s not. It’s about making your sport as cool as possible.

7. Technology. There are some terrific things happening in the area of interactive signage. I can’t imagine a more promising area for this emerging medium than cricket. Where else do people sit in the same area for 5 days surrounded by signage? I think there are also opportunities in allowing people to interact with the scoreboard but I think signage is the major opportunity.

The trick to all this is to bundle up your exciting new stuff in a single launch in order to generate maximum PR exposure. I’d probably call it New Cricket.