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Showing posts from June, 2018

Win The Toss And?

For the last three seasons in the county championship the away side can opt to bowl first without there being a toss.  If the away side doesn't take that option there is a toss in the usual way. I thought it would be interesting to see what impact this rule had both on the decisions made by captains and the results of the games.  This is the first of two posts on this topic and covers the first 40 games of the 2018 season (i.e. up to the round of matches ending 14th May.) In this period two games were abandoned without a ball being bowled.  Of the other 38, on 24 occasions the away side took the option of bowling first.  But not with a notable degree of success.  In nine of those gains the side sent in to bat won.  The tactic of bowling first was successful on 7 occasions with 8 draws. Of the 14 games where the was a toss the side winning the toss chose to bat first on 13 occasions.  Five of those bat first decisions resulted in a win, with four defeats and four draws.