How to Keep Track of Your Momentum
Runs and wickets are limited as a way of seeing how well your team is doing in the field. There is no easy way of seeing where the psychological momentum lies.
At least, there wasn’t until some bright spark in the England setup developed ‘Match Play’
Match Play is used to judge how well a team is performing as a unit in the field without comparison to the opposition or the conditions.
It concerns the mental boosts or falls found during the game and how this affects the confidence of both sides.
Match play is an indication of who is winning the battle of momentum.
- If your Match Play is good, then the momentum is with you.
- If your Match Play is bad, then the momentum swings in favour of the batting side.
It’s made up of various scenarios from every ball. Keeping a mental tally of these scenarios will help your side understand if the momentum is with you.
How Match Play works
- A misfield for instance will be +2 runs.
- A wicket will be -10 runs.
- A great stop will be worth -2 runs.
- A wide signalled will be worth the penalty runs in the scorebook as well as a Match Play score of +2 runs.
If the total is in minus figures then momentum is with you. If it is positive figures by a long way then the momentum is against you.
A Match Play score of +10 is acceptable as is the nature of the game, but if the score is above +20 then you need to claw back the momentum. The nearer the score is to 0 or minus figures the better your Match Play score is and the higher your chance of winning the game.
It will also give you an idea of the strengths and weaknesses of your side and areas to improve on.
So give the idea a try and get an easy shorthand way of tracking momentum.
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Comments
Good ideas there.
I would love to see some more advanced fielding stats coming into cricket. It shouldn't be difficult, just some basic stuff like recording dropped catches and mis-fields so you could produce individual fielding %, catching % and run-out % would be a good start.
This is a VERY broad brush approach and I would say is generally too broad to be useful in-match. The word "momentum" is probably a misnomer for this idea unless you apply it to a very short phase of the game (5-10 overs max.) rather than the game as a whole, and this isn't made clear above at all.
Example: The score is 200-5.
If, five overs ago it was 200-1, then the momentum is definitely with the bowling side. If, ten overs ago it was 125-5, then the momentum is clearly with the batting team.
Now, if you apply it to the most recent period of play then yes, I can see how it might be an interesting diagnostic (and primarily to be used in developing strategy and tactics for generating momentum, rather than as an in-game aid).
meh, too over-analytical. It is a wonder anyone managed to play the game successfully at all prior to all players farts being run through an endless barrage of diagnostic software. Players aren't machines, the have good days and bad.
We need to get back to making cricket fun and cut out the robotics, letting the players relax and enjoy their cricket (as in the 80's). The crowds will probably come back too as a result.