Cricket's Historians

302 Appendix Two Statistics in the Computer Age strong or weak opponents, on friendly or treacherous pitches, or in a winning or losing cause. It was only with computers that it became possible to create an objective method to factor in such differences; the result being player ratings. Rob Eastaway (b 1963) is an author, speaker and occasional broadcaster, particularly in the field of the public understanding of maths.  In 1984 he was introduced by a mutual friend to Gordon Vince, who had successfully built a computerised cricket simulation game; the modern version of the ‘Howzat’ dice game or ‘Oval’ card game played by earlier generations of schoolboys. An article on this new computer simulation appeared in The Cricketer in 1986 and prompted former England captain Ted Dexter to contact Vince and Eastaway. Dexter saw how golf had player rankings and wondered why cricket could not do the same. The three of them worked on the concept over that winter and, with sponsorship from Deloittes, launched the first set of Test cricket rankings in June 1987. This generated significant media coverage, the idea of announcing who was the number one batsman and bowler in the world at that time being an innovative way to promote the game. In 1988, the BBC started showing players’ world rankings as part of its coverage, further raising its profile. Then in 1991, Graham Gooch became the world’s top ranked batsman, an achievement that resonated with UK press and public opinion. Soon after the international ratings first appeared, there was a call for a similar approach to be applied to the English county game. Dexter, in his new capacity as Chairman of Selectors, would be a welcome recipient of any data purporting to show who really were the best performing county cricketers. By suitably adapting their Test methodology, Vince and Eastaway duly delivered a set of county batting and bowling rankings, which with sponsorship became the Whyte & Mackay rankings. In order to maintain the Test and county rankings, Vince needed to enter on to his computer the scorecard of each match as it was played. He created a program that allowed the information within a match scorecard to be extracted automatically and input into the rankings model. The program also checked the scorecard for internal consistency, ensuring not only that all the totals tallied, but that items such as falls of wicket were consistent with the development of an innings. The fortuitous by-product of this exercise was that other scorecard statistics, beyond those captured for the rankings model, could be readily extracted from the typed-up scorecards. In particular, at any point during the county season, a comprehensive set of county or national batting or bowling averages could be generated.