p As reviews of last week’s Edgbaston Test came in, a picture of the game was formed — using

parameters ranging from the key turning points to the shortcomings of Indian batsmen not named Virat
Kohli. The visitors lost of a golden opportunity to win a Test in England because their batting failed. If
you have read reviews of the game in the public prints, you could, by now, play the key episodes in the
game in your head, from Virat Kohli’s brilliant run-out of Joe Root, to Virat Kohli’s brilliant innings amidst
the ruins of India’s top order, to Sam Curran’s superb, match-turning effort in the third innings, to a
second collapse by India’s batsmen.

This is a picture, not of the game but, of the scorecard. The scorecard tells us that barring Kohli, none of
the Indian batsmen made a significant score. It tells us that England collapsed following Joe Root’s run-
out on the first day. The scorecard tells us that Sam Curran’s crucial half-century added a 100 runs to
India’s fourth-innings target. It is a picture of outcomes, not actions.

A picture of actions is available from Cricinfo’s control data. This is a record of the game in which every
delivery is recorded from the batsman’s point of view using a binary control measure. If the batsman is
deemed to have been in control of the delivery (basically, if the ball goes where the batsman intended),
the delivery is classed as “in control”. Otherwise, it is classed as “not in control”.

At Edgbaston, English bowlers forced Indian batsmen to be “not in control” more often than Indian
bowlers did to English batsmen. This was especially true in the first innings of the match. Ishant Sharma
struggled to challenge the left-handed English openers from over the wicket. He couldn’t attack the top
of off-stump. Mohammad Shami got a couple of wickets, but looked indifferent. And Umesh Yadav
struggled to find a length all innings. If it had not been for Ravichandran Ashwin’s mastery and Virat
Kohli’s brilliant opportunism, India might have been overrun on the first day.

When India batted, it was a similar story. The English fast bowlers beat the bat 37% of the time. James
Anderson, Ben Stokes, and — to a lesser extent — Stuart Broad were able to attack the top of off stump
of left- and right-handers alike. Sam Curran threatened the stumps and rarely drifted onto the
batsman’s pads. The English attack is limited in a broad set of conditions, but at Edgbaston, they were
very much at home.

We have come to understand cricket as being a batsman’s game, and the Test match as a stage for elite
batsmen to take on central starring roles. Especially in India, the overseas Test hundred is the holy grail
of sporting achievement. A different picture would be something like this. Cricket is a game in which the
bowler challenges the batsman every ball. The bowler who challenges the batsman more consistently
than others is the better bowler. Batsmen survive by their technical prowess and judgment of each
delivery. Some batsman are better at this than others. Every mistake forced by a bowler does not
produce a dismissal. But a batsman cannot hope to keep escaping indefinitely either. The control
measure captures this contest.

The figure below shows the distribution of batting innings according to the number of “not in control”
deliveries in each innings (there are 910 individual innings) over 6 series — the most recent India v South
Africa series in India and South Africa, and the two most recent India v England series in India and
England, going back to 2011. In other words, this chart answers the question, “How many times does a
batsman have to be beaten to be dismissed?”

Half of all innings end no later than the 7th mistake. Two-thirds end by the 10th mistake. 90% of all
innings end by the 24th mistake. Most Test hundreds are the result of a batsman surviving an unusual
number of mistakes. This is also why specialist batsmen fail as a rule in Test cricket. The median Test
innings for a batsman in the top 7 in Test cricket is only 20.

Thinking of innings in this way tells us that there are basically two ways for batsmen to construct a long
innings. First, batsmen can avoid making mistakes. Second, a batsman can get lucky. Cheteshwar Pujara
made 206 in 389 balls against England at Ahmedabad in 2012. In this innings, he was not in control of 21
deliveries out of 389. In the same Test match, Alastair Cook made 176 from 374 deliveries, 33 of which
he was not in control of. Alastair Cook’s 294 off 545 included 76 deliveries of which he was not in
control. Karun Nair’s triple-century was a relatively chancy affair. He was not in control of 60 of the 381
deliveries he faced for his 303. However, Virat Kohli’s 167 at Visakhapatnam was an assured innings. He
was not in control of only 24 of the 268 deliveries he faced in that effort.

At Edgbaston in 2018, Virat Kohli made 149 in 225 balls. He was not in control of 57 of these deliveries.
Among the six series and 910 innings included in the chart above, only 3 innings involve more than 57
not-in-control deliveries. For comparison, Dean Elgar’s 86 not-out off 240 balls at Johannesburg in 2018,
an innings notable for the number of times Elgar played and missed, included 54 not-in-control
deliveries.

In India’s innings on the second day, batsmen not named Kohli faced 235 deliveries and were not in
control on 68 occasions. Nine of those were dismissals. When Kohli miscued his attempted square-cut
off Rashid, it was the 57th delivery he was not in control of. Among the 56 previous instances, he had
been dropped twice and had edges fall short of the fielder a few times. In contrast, Joe Root’s 80 off 156
on the first day included only 21 deliveries where he was not in control. Unlike at Visakhapatnam, this
innings by Kohli was not one where he was the master of the situation. It was one where he was luckier
than his colleagues and made the most of his good fortune.
An analysis by Ben Jones at CricViz shows that the amount of swing on offer at Edgbaston was greater
than at in any Test match since the Ashes Test at Nottingham in 2015. In that game, Stuart Broad took
8/15 and Australia were bowled out for 60 on the first day. Each of the Tests in that list feature batting
collapses.

When pitches offer assistance, teams which exploit that assistance with greater persistence usually win.
At Edgbaston, England were this team. That the difference between the two sides was only 31 runs in
the end suggests that England are not as strong as they were in 2011 and 2014, and the Indian bowling
is better in 2018 than it was in 2014 and 2011. This suggests that the remaining Tests should be closely
contested.

Like the series in South Africa, and especially the Cape Town test, the Edgbaston Test was decided by
England’s superior bowling and greater overall depth. India played three genuine tailenders, while
England played only one — James Anderson. If Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah are available,
India have an opportunity to shore up the weak link in their XI.

The result at Edgbaston was the cumulative outcome of 1,632 equally important deliveries. There were
no key moments. The moments which appear to be key are only the most obvious but not the most
significant of these 1,632 mini-contests.

If the batting-centric picture of Test cricket is set aside, every delivery becomes significant. The
cumulative effect of a group of deliveries — a spell — becomes evident. The control numbers provide a
new way to understand the contest. The logic of this approach has always been available. We have
always heard commentators talk about accuracy and control and the amount of turn or movement
extracted by bowlers, and of the technique of batsmen. But until the control measure came along, it was
difficult to build an overall picture based on these apparently “right” ways of doing things. Cricket-
watchers were prisoners of the obvious. The control measurement, and other analytics like CricViz’s
false shots measure, provide a new picture of the Test match contest.

Put another way, Virat Kohli is unlikely to survive 57 not-in-control deliveries in the same innings too
often in his career. But England’s bowling attack is very likely to force mistakes more frequently than
India’s bowling attack in conditions favouring seam-and swing-bowling. India has a good chance of
winning a Test match somewhere because the difference between the two attacks has reduced over the
last three tours. But if all goes to form (and Test series usually go to to form), unless England suffer
personnel-related setbacks, they’re likely to win the series.rinciples and practice

The strong statement comes days after the managing editor and two anchors of a prominent TV
channel resigned

The Editors Guild of India on August 8, decried “all attempts” by the government to “interfere” with the
independence of the media, taking strong note of senior journalists of two TV channels quitting and
frequent instances of broadcast signals being blocked of programmes seen to be critical of the ruling
dispensation.

The Guild, an umbrella body of media organisations, in a statement, demanded suitable action against
those responsible for “nefarious activities” aimed at “throttling” press freedom and urged media owners
not to “cow down” to political pressure being put on them by the government or any other forces. It
demanded that the government take note of the cases of disruptions in television programme signals,
investigate and explain how and under what circumstances these “egregious violations” are taking
place. It said such attempts strike at the root of media freedom and the foundations of India’s
democracy.

“It (government) must also assure the nation that either directly or through any proxies or agencies it
isn’t involved in this activity. And if it isn’t, these saboteurs must be brought to book. Freedom of
airwaves cannot be tampered with,” said the Guild.

Pressure from the government

The strong statement comes days after the managing editor and two anchors of a prominent TV channel
resigned. The Congress has alleged that they quit due to pressure from the government for airing stories
critical of the Modi dispensation. It said the past few days have seen senior journalists of at least two
electronic media channels come out in the open to assert that their employers attempted to either
“tailor” or “tone down” content to make it less critical of the government, leaving them with no choice
but to resign. The Guild said at least one such instance was reported formally in writing to it.

“The Editors Guild of India condemns the manner in which the right to practise free and independent
journalism is seen to be undermined by a combination of forces — some media owners’ inability to
withstand covert or overt pressures from the political establishment and frequent instances of blocking
or interference in the transmission of television content that is seen to be critical of the government,” it
said.

Disruption of TV signals

The Guild said one TV channel has also shared with it screen-shots and details indicating such
interference. “Even more worrying are the recent instances where signals of television programmes
critical of the government have seemingly been blocked or disrupted in a manner almost Orwellian,” it
said. “These undermine the right to be informed and to hold the establishment accountable. This seems
a brazen attempt to punish ‘unfriendly’ news channels and silence inconvenient voices.”
The Guild asserted that freedom of airwaves cannot be tampered with and decried the tendency on the
part of the government, and the political class in general, to use “selective denial of journalistic access”
as a weapon.

“This has become worse when there are few opportunities to ask questions to those in public life or in
official positions on public platforms like press conferences, which is a legitimate democratic right of
journalists on behalf of all citizens. Denying this right and shunning journalists critical of you are
unhealthy practices in a democracy. Unfortunately, it can also lead to one-sided coverage. This
unhealthy and unfair practice must be avoided,” the Guild said.

It also reminded media owners that institutional strength and respect is directly linked to editorial
independence and undermining the former can result in curtailing the latter.

“Owners and journalists have an equally shared interest in press freedoms and in resisting pressures,”
the Guild said. On a related issue, the Guild decried the “cease and desist” notice served by a large
corporate group on some newspapersin an effort to block the coverage of an important defence deal.
“The company should withdraw this notice. And if it doesn’t, it should be resisted. If needed, we hope
the courts will weigh in for the right of journalists to investigate and raise questions,” it said.