The Cricket Statistician No 195

43 lateral movement of the ball. The unexpected link between the move to neutral umpires and the rise of left-handers at Test level is examined in some detail. Light is shed on the science behind some of cricket’s greatest mysteries such as why a sunny day is better for batting than a cloudy, humid day. (Conversely, it was slightly disappointing that the mysteries of reverse swing were largely left unaddressed.) There is a fascinating analysis of the ongoing debate about what to do on winning the toss and why the supposed benefits of batting first have been exaggerated in the last few decades (and why this may now be changing). In a particularly fascinating chapter, the impact of DRS and other umpiring changes on batting averages is analysed, the effect of a higher proportion of correct decisions being to increase the standard deviation between players so that the best outperform the rest by a greater margin. The trend for the top-performing batsmen to average above fifty from about 1996 is hence described as ‘the first unforeseen consequence of the improvement in the quality of umpires and their decisions’. (The analysis is only slightly spoiled by an error in the quantity of cricket played in the 1940s.) One important message to be taken away for this readership: within the rarefied world of cricket, statistics do actually matter (if not always in the way that we think), and there is some real-world application to questions such as how often Allan Border was dismissed lbw as compared with Javed Miandad. While the scientific analysis and the statistical detail may sometimes lose the lay reader, it is possible to follow the arguments without needing to understand every accompanying chart and graph. I found it a compelling and enlightening read, which sheds much light not only on how cricket works, but also on how this changes over the years so that what was once received wisdom can develop into a ‘tethered cat’ (a concept to which the authors return to several times during the course of the book). Highly recommended. Richard Lawrence Australian Premier Cricket First Grade Statistics Annual 2020-21 Compiled by Adam Morehouse, self-published, pp440, electronic copies available from the author at actcricketstats.org for A$20 This is about as comprehensive a survey of First Grade cricket in Australia as one could wish for. It comprises full statistical coverage of all First Grade cricket, including limited- over and T20 matches, for all seven Australian states including the Capital Territory, in women’s cricket as well as men’s. For each state, potted scores are given of each match, together with full scores of the finals of each competition (two-innings, 50-over and T20). Given the numbers involved, full scores of each match would make the volume impossibly large. Along with the scores, there are statistical highlights for the season in each state, full averages and much more besides. For this reviewer perhaps the greatest surprise was that such an annual did not already exist, given the importance of Grade cricket in the structure of Australian cricket. Indeed, it is interesting to note that the impact of the pandemic was to strengthen the link between grade and state cricket, with a number of players being selected for the Sheffield Shield directly