D/L wrote:That suggests that issues over the Duckworth/Lewis system and the calculation of power-play are inextricably linked.
Odd, I could have sworn power-plays were now a permanent part of limited overs cricket along the lines of bowling restrictions and that like the bowling restrictions had to be linked with any D/L reduction in the game. And like bowling restrictions any reduction calculations are rounded off, so that instead of having bowlers only bowling 1.8 overs maximum they are allowed to bowl 2 overs maximum off 9 overs - again just another example of an artifact of mathematics. If the percentages were really stuck to completely then we would Anderson, SiBo, Broad etc having to bowl 1 over and 5 balls (really 4.8 balls) and then have the last ball of their second overs being bowled by someone else.
They are not and nor do two wrongs make a right.
So what you are saying then is that the power plays should have been exactly 30% of the restrictions
and the target should have been 100% of what the first-innings run-rate would have produced in a reduced number of overs?
It should be obvious, and not only to the ICC, that it would be fairer to for both sides to bowl, as near as possible, the same proportion of deliveries under power-play conditions. This is something the ICC could put right immediately, irrespective of Duckworth/Lewis, if they had the collective nous to recognise the problem.
Your only looking at the bowling. What about the batting? Surely if the rules are going to have both sides bowling as near as possible the same proportion of deliveries under power-play conditions then the rules must allow the both sides to aim for the same proportion of runs in total.
The key though is what you already said: "for both sides to bowl,
as near as possible, the same proportion...". That's the whole point of rounding off - to make it practical, not exact. Something cannot be exact and also be "as near as possible"; it's either one or the other.
By the way, between 16 power-play deliveries (the number England would have bowled under a fairer calculation) and 18 deliveries (the number they actually bowled), there is a 12.5% difference.
And as pointed out earlier, the entire use of percentages is misleading because of the nature of numbers/maths. There is simply no way you are going to replicate 100% of the conditions in 9 overs as in 20 overs or 50 overs or 5 days and referring to percentages is pretty meaningless and pointless in that instance.
Again, for example you have a 20 over match with the following conditions:
- 11 players a side
- 10 wickets
- no bowler being allowed to bowl more than 1/5th of the total overs (4 overs)
- power-plays taking up approximately a third of the overs (6 overs)
If you reduce that match to 5 overs (the minimum amount needed for a match to be considered complete) and kept the reductions of the other conditions proportional to the percentage reduction in the number of overs we would get:
- 2.75 players a side
- 2.5 wickets
- no bowler being allowed to bowl more than 1/5th of the total overs (1 over)
- power-plays taking up approximately a third of the overs (1.5 overs)
Obviously a reduction on that scale would require at least one of those features to be adjusted. Either there would have to be more players to ensure the bowling restrictions are complied with or the bowling restrictions would have to be abandoned. Likewise they are not going to get 3/4ths of a person to field or bat.
So, again, looking at specific percentages is meaningless since somewhere, somehow there is going to have be some kind of rounding off. They round off the powerplays and the max number of deliveries that each bowler is allowed. If they stuck hard and fast with one without rounding off the other, it would never be fair.