bigfluffylemon wrote:That's more than a little disingenuous. No one ever said the West Indies can't make 300. But it's ridiculous to say that they make it every test innings, on balance, because the 4th innings is not the same as batting in the 1st innings. In the last 10 years, the West Indies have only once chased a target greater than 255. That was yesterday. They have only twice made more than 300 in the 4th innings at over 3.5 an over. Once was yesterday. It was entirely reasonable to consider it would be unlikely that they could achieve it
Achieving a target is neither here nor there, we are talking how much you can score in a 4th innings, whether or not you win the game or not has no baring on the expected runs you can score, and therefore base a declaration one. Taking how many times in the last decade West Indies have been set over 322 and scored it.....
17 times they have been set the target. They have scored it 6 times, half of which they had wickets in hand. In one occasion they were close to the target with more than half wickets left and ran out of time, so Id give them the 7th instance assuming infinite time. Thats 42% of times they have had enough runs to target this, they have made it.
No obviously, you have to say thats made it. There is a plus/minus risk factor in this too. For instance, lets take into account how many times Windies were set that target and came within 15% of making it. There are 12 of the 17 instances where Windies score 280. There is an occasion they score 260/4 also, so Id guess we can add that in there (they successfully chased so that ended)..... You are looking at about a 76-77% chance, in the last decade, that Windies get at least within 50 runs of 322 when they have been set it.
No gambling man is taking on those odds of losing.
Oh and yes, Windies average a few hundreths of a run away from their general average in the 4th innings, so they are fractions away from an average of 300 per completed fourth innings if you had checked the stats. Its something like 297 per complete 4th innings.