The Cricket Statistician No 195

19 32 Should the principles in Questions 29, 30 and 31 also be applied to all ‘conventional’ T20 cricket? The sub-group agreed that it would be sensible to introduce these principles in all forms of short-format cricket, including T20 games. 33 Should the scorecard symbol indicating the wicket-keeper go to the person who was expected to be the WK, or the person who actually did keep wicket? Keith Walmsley had raised this question. The PCS Pro scoring software requires a nominated WK to be entered at the start of a match. The nominated WK is the ‘expected WK’ derived from the player nomination form, team captain, coach, match managers, media manager, media reps or newspapers. Douglas Miller also pointed out that, in recreational cricket and games where team cards are handed over, the WK is nominated, because the WK may be a junior, and the umpires need to know what protection he should have. Keith queried the idea of ‘nominated WK’ as the Laws do not require a WK to be nominated (unlike the captain) and was concerned that the expectation may turn out to be wrong; or that the nominated WK may be injured when batting and never keep wicket in the match. Statisticians want to focus on who did keep wicket rather than who was expected to keep wicket. In practice, if the WK is injured and replaced, a note is made of this. There is also an option on the scoring software to change the nominated WK and, if this happens part-way through the innings when fielding, the software asks whether the change is to be made for the whole innings or the match. A scorecard printed at the end of the match will show the dagger next to the person who was keeping at the end. Arthur Conan Doyle for MCC by David M. Smith A s a teenager taking his first steps into the world of cricket history and statistics, I was delighted to find out that one of my heroes, Arthur Conan Doyle, had played first-class cricket. Admittedly, it was only ten matches for MCC, and his record was hardly a stellar one, but it made no difference – the creator of Sherlock Holmes could do no wrong in my eyes, and he had played first-class cricket! Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was born on 22 May 1859 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Conan was Arthur’s second middle name but shortly after he graduated from school he began using Conan as a sort of surname. Technically, his last name remains simply “Doyle”, and when he was knighted he was gazetted as Doyle without the compound name. It was at Stonyhurst College, near Clitheroe in Lancashire, that Doyle fell in love with cricket, but he was not particularly good at the game. Initially, he benefited from being small: at that time it was considered bad form for the faster bowlers to bowl quickly at someone his size,