A brilliant plan to rid cricket of useless tossers
- From: "rterhart@xxxxxxxxx" <rterhart@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 03:28:32 -0700 (PDT)
In the Financial Times, economist Tim Harford comes up with an
alternative to the toss in cricket. (Full article reprinted below.)
He suggest that instead of tossing, captains could offer the
opposition a head start in the form of 'bid byes'. Whoever is willing
to concede the most byes to the opposition, gets to bat first.
Harford ends the article on a typical note: "Alas, the MCC informs me
that the proposal was considered by a sub-committee last summer, and
“found no enthusiasm”. That is a shame. The idea may not be cricket,
but it is excellent economics."
Cheers,
RtH
A brilliant plan to rid sport of useless tossers
By Tim Harford
Published: March 21 2009 00:33 | Last updated: March 21 2009 00:33
“Useless tosser” is a popular epithet for cricket captains with a
knack for losing the coin toss and thus allowing their opponents to
decide whether to bat or to bowl first. Winning the toss is not always
an advantage but, depending on the weather conditions, it can give the
winner a significant edge.
Language barriers have prevented the phrase “useless tosser” from
crossing the Atlantic, but the problem is familiar. When an American
football game goes into overtime, it is a distinct advantage to win
the coin toss. The coaches know it: when they win, they almost
invariably choose to receive possession of the ball. In 2008, lucky
callers won 10 overtime games and unlucky ones only four.
The very existence of the coin toss is an admission of defeat – that
there is something irreducibly unbalanced about these games, some
advantage that cannot be divided but can only be surrendered to the
gods of chance. Chess players cannot both play “grey” – one must play
white. Cricket teams cannot bowl simultaneously.
The obvious solution is to take turns to enjoy the advantage. This
works perfectly well for chess, where a series of games can go on
almost indefinitely, but not so well for cricket and even less well
for American football, where TV schedules make it difficult to allow
overtime to continue too long.
Economics has a natural answer: against the indivisible advantage of
winning the toss, trade something that can be more finely divided. In
chess, white could be granted less time on the clock. (Tyler Cowen, an
economist and chess expert, tells me this has been known to happen,
but is regarded as unnecessary because it is so easy to take turns to
play white.)
In cricket, the team with the advantage of choosing whether to bat
first could give its opponent a head start in the form of extra runs –
“bid byes”. In American football, the team with possession is already
penalised by having to start far back on the field; the trouble is
that they don’t start far back enough.
This exemplifies a second problem. Once we agree that one team must be
compensated (in time, runs, or field position), how large should the
compensation be? Here, again, economics has the answer. The advantage
should be auctioned off to whoever is willing to concede the most
compensation to the opposition. The idea is absolutely equitable,
intrinsically more exciting than a coin toss, and puts the emphasis on
the judgment of the captains. Thankfully, since not all coin tosses
are equally important – especially in cricket – the auction price
reflects conditions on the day.
Having once written a thesis on sequential auctions with budget
constraints (translation: the kind of auctions you get in a game of
Monopoly), I am embarrassed to admit that applying auctions to cricket
is not my idea – nor that of my fellow professional economists.
Creative sports fans are the trailblazers here.
Two brothers, Chris and Andy Quanbeck – both engineers – proposed the
auction idea to America’s football authorities in 2003 with, alas, no
success. (I have written about their idea in more detail in Slate
magazine.) But they were not the first.
To the best of my knowledge, the brilliant idea of replacing a coin
toss with an auction had previously been suggested in these very
pages. Warren Edwardes, a serial entrepreneur based in London,
proposed using an auction in cricket, in a letter to the Financial
Times in 1999. As so often, FT readers were the first to know. Alas,
the MCC informs me that the proposal was considered by a sub-committee
last summer, and “found no enthusiasm”. That is a shame. The idea may
not be cricket, but it is excellent economics.
.
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