Money saving expert stumped by rain
The Observer can categorically confirm that the Martin Lewis spotted in the Headingley pavilion on the rain-affected third day of the Test was no deepfake. Britain’s beloved money expert may be regretting his trip up from London after his first two trains were cancelled and most of the day was lost to rain – but it didn’t stop him enthusing about the way that cricket’s new world is shaking up the formerly genteel pastime of cricket statistics.
“I love rankings,” said Lewis, “and now in the IPL you can put a proper pounds-and-pence value on every player. In the States they unashamedly love their baseball stats but here we’ve always done it in a more understated way … I get very annoyed when I look at a scorecard and it doesn’t tell me the strike rate, or at least the balls and runs so I can do it myself.” The people he feels the most sorry for under Bazball, he says, are the algorithm writers at Winviz, because its outcome predictor doesn’t seem to have successfully attuned to England’s new methodology and now “the only thing swinging faster than Stokes at the moment is the Winviz percentage score”.
What about cricket memorabilia – is it ever worth people spending their money on autographed bats and shirts from 90s one-Test wonders? “I think memorabilia is always a good buy if you want it,” says Lewis, diplomatically. “But you can’t predict what’s going to be the amazing thing at the time. A winning stump from the World Cup is probably going to accumulate but whether getting one of Chris Woakes’s shoes is going to be worthwhile in 10 years time is difficult …”
Heavens open and the museum is too
Most of the Australian fans following the Ashes series can be identified in the stands either as a block of hi-vis yellow, or, a swathe of tracksuit green. A small but eye-catching collection in floral shirts – often to be seen waving the orange-and-black flag of the Northern Territory – belong to a smaller, indie tour group run by Luke Gillian, who has been following Australia abroad since 1995. Gillian claims to be the only Australian spectator to have watched them play in every Test country they’ve competed in, and the next Test at Old Trafford will be his 222nd, which deserves a Richie Benaud impression all of its own. As a chef, Gillian says his best tip for travelling gourmands is to get themselves to a Netherlands game. “Amstelveen has the best in-ground catering in the whole of the cricketing world,” says Gillian. “And I say that as someone who’s eaten a lot of good seafood.”
The rain caused a rush to the club’s Yorkshire Cricket Museum, where a new exhibition mounted specially for the Ashes includes Ben Stokes’s batting gloves from his famous Headingley ’19 performance. No request has as yet been made to the England captain for an item from the outfit he wore here on Friday, during his latest miracle innings, but then the museum’s new manager, Charlotte Hughes, has more pressing concerns. Her current herculean task is to audit the club’s more-than 10,000 archived items in storage in Morley – a process she estimates will take the next five years. Given the state of the club’s finances, much of the heritage work at Headingley is done on a voluntary basis and the lack of grant money for simple things like illuminating cabinets means that in some parts of the museum, it’s a literal struggle to keep the lights turned on.
Carey cut loose from barbering brouhaha
Barbergate: an update. On Thursday it was reported that a Leeds barber was still waiting for Alex Carey to pay for a £30 trim, after he’d gone for a haircut with a few other members of the squad, only to find himself cashless at an establishment that didn’t accept cards (it’s happened to us all). On Saturday the story entered the always-enjoyable denial phase, as Cricket Australia stated that England’s arch-nemesis had never even been at the barbers, but had been mistaken for another player, who had later paid by bank transfer. Cue a slew of before-and-after pictures on social media, comparing the length of the keeper’s locks at Lord’s and Leeds, and the news that the unnamed player would be visiting the Doc Barnet Barber Shop with his receipt later in the day. Sounds like a shear misunderstanding.
