Hitting Against the Spin: How Cricket Really Works

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Test cricket is effectively a series of individual battles, the accumulated results of which decide the outcome of the game.

It’s credited to two authors but at least one chapter has an authorial “I” and you have to deduce that’s Nathan. The book makes you look at cricket in ways most laymen wouldn't have looked at and has facts and stats that might stun you. These changes have in turn led to a growing success for left-handed batters, increased overall batting averages and induced finger spinners to bowl around the wicket far more often. I only occasionally found myself confused, and overall it’s a really good read for anyone who’s interested in his cricket is developing.Of all the chapters in Part I of Hitting Against The Spin: How Cricket Really Works the most interesting, even to a dinosaur like me, was the closing one which, by looking at England’s disasters against the spin attacks of Sri Lanka and Pakistan in the early months of 2012, analyse just how they managed to turn that round and, against all expectations, win in India as that same year drew to a close. But the argument in the first chapter on "how to win a world cup" was a pretty ordinary qualitative one--I kept waiting for the data that would redeem it. For example, the chapter on left handed batsmen is brilliant but near the end, the analysis about spinners is rushed and the exclusion of leg spinners is handwavy which is funny because later leg spin gets its own chapter. One way of viewing this book is as cricket's A Brief History of Time, a layman's guide to deep complexity, an act of communication as much as one of science. As much as I find the zenith of the game to be Test match cricket, it is undeniable that the white ball game, and in particular T20 has had a major and compelling impact since it's inception.

Chapters were often linked to specific seasons or teams, which meant they had relatable case studies and weren't just abstract, and there was also less extrapolation of what could happen in future.You might be surprised to also know how big a role data is already playing in decision making in cricket. As someone who is a great fan of cricket and has a large knowledge of cricket it was rare to find a book that challenged my perceptions of how the game operated. Obviously there are some parallels to cricket and the statistical revolution really changed the game here so to see similar ideas be applied to my favorite game obviously interests me greatly. Uneven in places: the acknowledgements say ‘if not for the pandemic it would have been a better book’ and I think that’s true. What are all the different sorts of ways that data can be used to play, coach and manage the game differently, and what happens when you use it in that way?

I find sports data intriguing, but I’m often limited in understanding by not being great with numbers and thanks to learning disabilities I find it very hard to read and understand tables. Thoroughly enjoyed this book as a cricket fan and it revealed so much about the game that I hadn't even noticed or even considered. I did wonder if this would work, as coverage of cricket is already quite stats heavy, but I needn't have worried. In keeping with my age, upbringing and general nerdiness, I generally mean First class cricket and, in particular, Test cricket. There are duplicated graphs and indeed incomprehensible ones, and ones that do not imply what the authors clearly think they do.They analyse the unseen hands that determine which players succeed and which fail, which tactics work and which don’t, which teams win and which lose. Hitting Against the Spin' is an object lesson in how to use data and analytics to elucidate the science and structure of cricket.