Are the sections correct?
Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2012 1:42 pm
I've been seeking to provide some numbers for this question, too.
I started with a fundamental principle: That a county should be able to field a full team without dipping into the next grading band down. For example, a U180 team should be able to field a team filled entirely with players graded 160-179. The reason for this is that at the national stages, a strong county ought to be able to field teams in every section without one team stealing players from another. (Yorkshire and Lancashire do this at the moment with admirable success.) For that reason, I've ignored the U100, on the basis that there is no section below it creating a floor.
So I've totted up the number of players in the wrong band playing for a team. There are two potential things that may distort this:
(1) A reserve. Neil Graham, for example, leaped from the concession stand to fill in when a Nottinghamshire player was absent.
(2) Improvement. A county may be putting in someone graded 70 into the Under 120 because he's genuinely improved significantly from the start of the season, and they don't have an Under 100 team to put him in. This could be resolved by looking only at players under the limit of the section minus 20 who are on boards at the bottom, but I decided not to do that for this, because this only occurred to me after I'd got the data for two sections out of four, and I was too lazy to go back and correct everything. I don't think this will be that significant.
(3) Some reports had January grades, not July grades. I couldn't be bothered to change them, so didn't. This only affected two games out of everything, so far as I could tell.
First, the Under 180 section. The following table shows everyone who qualified for the national stages, sorted by the number of players available within that boundary.
This makes the far-from-startling discovery that the biggest counties went the furthest in the tournament. It also shows that the counties that reached the Final used far fewer players from other sections than other teams.
Why did Surrey dip into the < 160 players so much? Given their size, they had enough bums to put on seats within the boundary. They can't blame their Open team for taking the players away; only 1 player in the Open was under 180 last season. I'm not sure I can think of an explanation for that.
On average, 4.25 boards were below 160. That's about 26%.
Next, the Under 160.
There's a much less intuitive relationship here between progression through the event, and the number of players from the wrong section. This can be explained by Kent losing to Yorkshire in their opening match; both of which ought to have gone far in the competition had they avoided each other. The Semi Finalists were about as good as each other in terms of putting out players in the right section.
On average, 3.01 boards were below 140. That's about 18%.
Same again, this time Under 140. The counties with the most players from below 120 were Leicestershire and Yorkshire. Neither county made it beyond the Quarter Finals.
This time, an average of 1.75 boards were below 120, which is just 11%.
Finally, the Under 120. Again, Staffordshire and Norfolk went out early, and they had the most players under 100.
2.02 boards under 100 on average, 17%.
I've attempted to summarise the above as a table.
It seems to me that there is a problem with the Under 180 section, in so much as the counties that field teams in it have to dip into the pool of players below 160 too much. I would argue that the Under 160 and Under 120 were also too high, whereas the Under 140 figure is probably reasonable. This would suggest to me one of two things: Either (a) There are too many sections, or (b) The teams are too big.
I'm going to see if there's a relationship between the size of the county, and the number of players in other sections they have to use. I'd be amazed if there wasn't, but I think it's worth doing to clarify!
I started with a fundamental principle: That a county should be able to field a full team without dipping into the next grading band down. For example, a U180 team should be able to field a team filled entirely with players graded 160-179. The reason for this is that at the national stages, a strong county ought to be able to field teams in every section without one team stealing players from another. (Yorkshire and Lancashire do this at the moment with admirable success.) For that reason, I've ignored the U100, on the basis that there is no section below it creating a floor.
So I've totted up the number of players in the wrong band playing for a team. There are two potential things that may distort this:
(1) A reserve. Neil Graham, for example, leaped from the concession stand to fill in when a Nottinghamshire player was absent.
(2) Improvement. A county may be putting in someone graded 70 into the Under 120 because he's genuinely improved significantly from the start of the season, and they don't have an Under 100 team to put him in. This could be resolved by looking only at players under the limit of the section minus 20 who are on boards at the bottom, but I decided not to do that for this, because this only occurred to me after I'd got the data for two sections out of four, and I was too lazy to go back and correct everything. I don't think this will be that significant.
(3) Some reports had January grades, not July grades. I couldn't be bothered to change them, so didn't. This only affected two games out of everything, so far as I could tell.
First, the Under 180 section. The following table shows everyone who qualified for the national stages, sorted by the number of players available within that boundary.
This makes the far-from-startling discovery that the biggest counties went the furthest in the tournament. It also shows that the counties that reached the Final used far fewer players from other sections than other teams.
Why did Surrey dip into the < 160 players so much? Given their size, they had enough bums to put on seats within the boundary. They can't blame their Open team for taking the players away; only 1 player in the Open was under 180 last season. I'm not sure I can think of an explanation for that.
On average, 4.25 boards were below 160. That's about 26%.
Next, the Under 160.
There's a much less intuitive relationship here between progression through the event, and the number of players from the wrong section. This can be explained by Kent losing to Yorkshire in their opening match; both of which ought to have gone far in the competition had they avoided each other. The Semi Finalists were about as good as each other in terms of putting out players in the right section.
On average, 3.01 boards were below 140. That's about 18%.
Same again, this time Under 140. The counties with the most players from below 120 were Leicestershire and Yorkshire. Neither county made it beyond the Quarter Finals.
This time, an average of 1.75 boards were below 120, which is just 11%.
Finally, the Under 120. Again, Staffordshire and Norfolk went out early, and they had the most players under 100.
2.02 boards under 100 on average, 17%.
I've attempted to summarise the above as a table.
It seems to me that there is a problem with the Under 180 section, in so much as the counties that field teams in it have to dip into the pool of players below 160 too much. I would argue that the Under 160 and Under 120 were also too high, whereas the Under 140 figure is probably reasonable. This would suggest to me one of two things: Either (a) There are too many sections, or (b) The teams are too big.
I'm going to see if there's a relationship between the size of the county, and the number of players in other sections they have to use. I'd be amazed if there wasn't, but I think it's worth doing to clarify!