Lots of statements from commentators (both paid and unpaid) about the value of winning the toss and batting first in India.  Universally held, winning the toss is a big advantage and quite a few comments along the lines of, "once we lost the toss, we'd lost the game." And I can see why people say this, logically if batting becomes harder over time, you want to bat earlier in the game. But looking at the statistics there is very little support for this.  Using cricinfo's stats guru function it is possible to see what happened to the side batting first in each game played in India for the period from 2000.  There's a nice round 100 games in the period (doesn't include current test) and the stats for the 21st century are. Bat 1  = Win =      32 Bat 1  = lose =      41 Bat 1 = Draw =    27 So across a decent sample size the evidence seems to suggest, in complete contrast to intuition, bat second. Do I believe this? Wellllll...

Warwickshire's accounts for the year to 30 September 2020 are available  here These are the first county cricket club accounts I've seen which cover the period of the coronavirus pandemic.  I've covered previous Warwickshire accounts, 2019   2018   2017 This post continues the analysis and considers whether there's a future for the counties in general and Warwickshire in particular.  As it's quite a long post I'm starting off with a summary. Summary Given the  pandemic, Warwickshire's 2020's results weren't too bad.  The board is confident the club can navigate 2021 and as I believe Warwickshire is one of the weaker counties financially I'm increasingly optimistic most counties will get to 2022, perhaps a little battered, but basically intact.  But if the virus results in reduced crowds for 2022 (and beyond?) continued financial hardship will take a toll.  Problems may be particularly marked for test match staging counties who have budgeted o...