Wednesday, 6 January 2010

Most pointless new statistic of the year

It may be only Epiphany, but the Sky commentary team have surely sealed their first award of 2010: most pointless new statistic.

To show that members of the Ursidae family defecate in land covered with a thick growth of trees how utterly useless Daryl Harper is, Sky compiled a table showing for each umpire how many decisions had been referred, how many had been reversed and then our award winner: what percentage of decisions referred were upheld.

On the face of it, it seemed a sensible enough statistic - because it appeared to back up what we already knew: namely that Aleem Dar was excellent (80% of referral decisions upheld, the highest percentage upheld) and that Harper, who on Steve Bucknor's retirement had inherited the West Indian's dark glasses and white cane, was useless (50% of referrals overturned).

Sir Ian Botham leapt on this stat and started laying into Harper, like he was an Australian spinner (a metaphor which works pleasingly just as well if we are talking 1981 and Botham as a batsman and Ray Bright as the spinner, or Australia post-Warne and Botham as a pundit). Now I'm quite keen on using statistics to further our understanding and appreciation of this wonderful game and if I have already hinted at it, I don't particularly rate Daryl Harper as a test umpire, but it's a shame that nobody stopped to think what this statistic actually shows us.

The important column was the second one: the number of decisions that were overturned and therefore wrong (assuming Harper wasn't the third umpire). An umpire that is challenged ten times in a test and has got only two overturned (80%) has got more decisions wrong than an umpire in the same test that was only challenged once and that challenge was overturned (0%).

Even this isn't a perfect way of measuring an umpire's performance (not every incorrect decisions is necessarily referred), but it has to be a better way of measuring an umpire's competency than the percentage of referrals upheld. I have no issue with bashing Daryl Harper - who produced two howlers when missing a clear inside edge and mistaking a leg for a bat - but please choose the right stick to hit him with: it's the white one, marked property of S. Bucknor.

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