The T20 World Cup now entering its final stages has seen some major surprises. One of the biggest was the rank outsider US team beating perennial powerhouse Pakistan in its group game. That proved pivotal in taking the US to the second round of just eight teams of the 20 that started out, with Pakistan not making it. Then we saw another powerhouse New Zealand get completely routed by Afghanistan in their group game, enabling the latter to make it into the final eight while eliminating the former.
In the games involving the final eight teams, Afghanistan pulled off another shocker by beating Australia, the team that, along with India, were favored to win the tournament. They then went on to beat Bangladesh, propelling them into the semi-finals where they will play South Africa. The other semi-final will be between India and England.
It is clear that Afghanistan is the Cinderella team of this tournament and one hopes that they can keep pulling off these upsets and beat South Africa and then whoever they meet in the finals.
Given South Africa’s record , either South Africa or Afghanistan can both take the Cinderella tag
There was an interesting comment that dealt with the fact that what should be done with the cricket team (given the Talibans human right violations especially against women) vs how South Africa was banned during their Apartheid regime.
I really don’t understand that mindset. If an underdog does well, that’s great. But in a particular match, I just hope the better team in that match wins, whether they are the favourites or not.
Rooting for the underdog is a thing, Rob.
(David and Goliath stuff)
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Also, it’s a source of hope for a nation that really, really needs something to feel good about.
(Was a thing in Australia in the days of Phar Lap and the depression, it still resonates in the culture here, forms part of the national character at a remove)
I noted this at PZ’s place: https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/04/07/infinite-thread-xxxi/comment-page-6/#comment-2225172
Happiness is: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpvvggllp2ko
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Yes John, I know ‘rooting for the underdog’ is a thing. But if they are outplayed, I want them to lose. ‘hoping they win’ is meaningless to me.
Well, then you probably also don’t get the entire point of international sporting competitions.
Each country’s team represents their country, and whatever glory they garner belongs to the country too.
And its inhabitants.
People invest a shitload of emotion into those contests, their national team is a proxy for the national spirit, blah blah.
It’s how people are.
BTW, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_War
@Rob Grigjanis @2
How is this determination of “better” made other than a tautology (the team that won was better for that match, QED -- excepting bad umpiring decisions)?
Football fans may disagree (Hello Arsene Wenger fans) but in cricket this is a less of a thing.
#6 Deepak
The phrase also excludes cheating, and depending on the person saying it, it may also exclude gameplay that is not technically cheating but is outside the spirit of the game.
Holms, heh. So dated a reference!
Think of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Australian_ball-tampering_scandal (sandpapergate).
Deepak Shetty @6:
Are you saying you can’t tell if a cricket side plays well? In fact, one of the great attractions of sport is that the better side can in fact lose a game, because outcomes can be determined by probability. A batsman skillfully manages to hit a well-bowled ball. But even the most skilled batsmen can’t place their shot to the centimetre. It might come down just within reach of a skilled fielder, or just outside their reach. Such are the things (among many others) that can determine outcomes.
John @5:
You have this habit of leaping to wildly unjustified conclusions.
I’m an England football supporter. In the case of the men, that can be frustrating (the most recent matches in Euro 2024, eg). But I’m also a football fan, who enjoys watching two good teams play each other. And I enjoy it a bit more if the side I judge to be the better one wins. Quite often, that is not the case (“football is a game of inches”, etc). Is this an alien concept to you (apart from the fact you find football boring, I mean)?
BTW, tournaments are great fun, with winners getting bragging rights, etc. But the idea (that many people seem to have) that they determine the best team is nonsense. For a start, whoever the eventual winners are, they won’t even have played against many of the other teams. And knockouts are inherently dependent on factors beyond the players’ control.
That said, there have been times when a particular side has been universally recognized as the best, and has even sometimes gone on to win a tournament. In soccer, that has included (at different times) Brazil, Germany and Spain.
@Holms @7
Sure , excluding those criteria where the referee gets something wrong that changes the course of the match or cases where the toss may have a larger than usual impact on the outcome of the game. Gameplay is debatable as fans are usually hypocritical when it comes to such matters.
@Rob Grigjanis @9
No I can’t tell if a team played better than the other , in any kind of objective manner (and given that I am an all rounder in Cricket -- cant bat, cant bowl , cant field , i cant really tell why professionals play the way they do).
In cricket it is the accumulation of runs that determine the winner. if you exclude that criteria what is better ? Most people use better as substitute for play that is fun to watch. (Why is the that batsman defending ? Why cant he hit everything for a six ? Look at that idiot batsman who got out playing a rash shot, why couldnt he just defend!).
Football is even worse than Cricket because the majority of time is mostly(yes , yes i know) irrelevant to the outcome. Fans usually prefer attacking styles of play to define better but is that accurate?. Team 1 played better because they had the majority of the possession (why then didnt they score?) , team 1 is better because they created more chances and had more shots on goal (but why are they so bad to miss ?), Team 1 is better because team 2 just parked the bus and prevented Team1 from scoring and then scored on a lucky break (sounds like an effective nullification of team1 by team 2) and so on.
Or look at England in the Euros- Everyone says they are playing really badly -- while topping their group -- what does it say about who they are playing ?
Deepak Shetty @12: Sticking to football for now. Does possession indicate ‘better’? Certainly not. Does creation of more chances indicate ‘better’? Yes, with qualification of how good those chances were. But of course, chances alone don’t win games. And that’s where probability comes in. Create more chances, and you are statistically more likely to win. Scoring more goals than the other side might mean you’re the better side, but it might just mean that the gods of probability smiled on you more in that game.
Well, there’s a lot more to good defending than ‘parking the bus’. If you can absorb the pressure from a good attacking side and create a few scoring chances from quick counter-attacks, that’s a valid criterion for ‘better’.
Rob,
1. “‘hoping they win’ is meaningless to me.”
2. I’m an England football supporter.
It follows you are an England football supporter for whom any concept of hoping that England wins is meaningless.
(Interesting form of support)
Nope. But you claimed you find this desire for one’s team (the team for which one barracks) to win to be meaningless, and far as I know, every true supporter wants their team to win.
You are the first exception I’ve ever encountered.
John @14: You’re so predictable.
The context was hoping an underdog wins, because they are the underdog. That is meaningless to me.
I may differ from most supporters (I don’t really care), but my idea of support is hoping my team wins by outplaying the other team. If England is beaten by a better side, I have no problem.
Ah, right. OK, I stand corrected.
Not the rooting for one’s team, but the rooting for the underdog.
That’s the thing that you find senseless.
Notably, it’s rare as fuck that the England team is an underdog in soccer.
Or in cricket.
Me, I fully subscribe (ceteris paribus) to the sentiment of rooting for the underdog.
In this case, I am very happy for Afghanistan, actually.
And for the country’s populace, a bit of happiness in their lives, a bit of vicarious pride.
A reminder that the future might be better.
[meta]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_the_Eagle
@Rob Grigjanis
Sure. but if team 1 makes more chances but scores fewer than team 2 and loses is Team 1 better was the question. Statistically and Probabilitity wise this should not happen often, if all things were equal. But say Team 2 has a really good goalkeeper (Say real madrid’s) and Team 1 has a mediocre to good one (Say Tottenham) then the probability may change and you may even find this a likely occurence. Is Team 2 better now (But football is a team game!)? Ultimately though this is such a subjective evaluation that makes better meaningless.
@John Morales @16
How many teams are there against whom England have never, ever won a match, Deepak?
(Before this event, Australia was one for Afghanistan)
John @17: I remember Eddie the Eagle! My hope for him was that he didn’t break his neck.
Deepak @18:
Ah, so you haven’t watched much football. As I thought.
@John Morales @19
And
Did you move from soccer to cricket ? In any case -- England the cricket team is stronger than their football team but again barring a couple of occasions hasnt done well in tournaments. They are not at the bottom but they rarely are predicted to win and rarely win world tournaments..
@Rob Grigjanis
Maybe I misunderstand -- but are you saying that statistically/probabilistically, all other things being equal, the team that has more attempts on goals scores fewer goals and loses (if you mean fewer as a % of total attempts sure , but thats not relevant) ? And since all other things are never equal , that statement is as good as the imagine a spherical cow.
Did you actually think ? I thought you are using terms like probability without understanding how you’d actually prove this. A striker hits a ball -- whats the probability it goes in -- Please enlighten me with all your football viewing experience. Use math.
Nope, but since it has been bruited as an example (“In soccer” @11) and that the convo into which you interjected (quite properly, of course), I did not disdain using it as an example.
We’re not talking about winning the whole tournament, we’re talking about winning a match against an opponent they have never beaten before.
Anyway, sure… perennial underdogs, are England at soccer.
For example, in the FIFA World Cup, England has played 74 matches, of which they won 32, drew 22, and lost 20.
In International Friendlies, the corresponding figures are 402, 227, 93, and 80.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England_national_football_team_all-time_record#Performance_by_competition)
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BTW, both cricket and soccer were invented by the Brits.
Accordingly, they have by far the most experience at those games of any of the other countries that play that game.
Who defeated the United States team in the second round?
seachange: https://www.google.com/search?q=Who+defeated+the+United+States+team+in+the+second+round%3F
Deepak @21: Sure, let’s do some simple math with a very simplistic model. Suppose two evenly matched teams create six scoring chances each, where the probability of a chance leading to a goal is 1/6 (So, rolling dice probabilities).
With the scoring probability per chance α=1/6, the probability that one side scores n goals (where n can go from 0 to 6) is
P(n) = [6!/n!(6-n)!](α^n)[(1-α)^(6-n)]
From there, it’s fairly straightforward to calculate the probability of various final scores. The most likely score is 1-0 (for either side) at 26%. A score of 1-1 has a probability of 16%, as does that of a 2-1 outcome (either side). 2-0 (either side) is at 14%. 0-0 is at 11%.
Now, a 3-0 score (either side) is at about 3%. Looks fairly lopsided, but if you’ve watched or played enough matches, you know it certainly happens (followed by exclamations of “that was never a 3-0 game!” from fans of the losing side).
Might as well add: a draw is the most likely outcome (the probability of 0-0 plus that of 1-1 plus that of 2-2, etc), which gives about 31%.
Seachange @#23,
The format for this tournament is that the eight teams that qualify for the second round are put in two groups of four, where each team plays every other team in its group. The top two in each group get to the semi-finals where it becomes a knockout.
USA lost to all three teams in its group: South Africa, England, and West Indies.
@John Morales
In terms of years maybe -- not necessarily in terms of game time and it definitely does not translate to say One day or T20 cricket which are modern inventions and where Test experience would probably be considered negative rather than a positive. If i remember also England is only credited with modern football (kicking a ball around predates that)
@Rob Grigjanis
Great. What about with non evenly matched teams (i.e. the non spherical cows). Also you have made an assumption that even matched strikers (Say Ronaldo and Beckham both take free kicks) kick the ball in exactly the same way so that the probabilities are the same and that evenly matched Goalkeepers respond the same way. (and that is even excluding match conditions like the direction of the wind and the ground conditions and the level of support for each team)
In any case I hope the better team wins on Sunday (or the team that wins is better) -- I will hope the lower ranked ones win as usual (so Slovakia!). The cricket match I hope for South Africa but i wont be too upset if its India.
@Deepak Shetty: I could make the models far more complicated, but I’m not paid enough for that. The point is that even with closely matched teams, lopsided results are possible. Of course you already knew that, but you wanted to see some math. You’re welcome!
Speaking of unlikely results (with Cristiano Ronaldo on the losing side, no less!);
Georgia 2 Portugal 0
@Rob Grigjanis
I salute your patience (no sarcasm intended).
Ronaldo is no longer the player he used to be , though the value of some players is not only defined by only their actual play (but who knows!)
India beat England handily, so it’s them and South Africa in the final.
And congratulations to India! Looked like a close-run match.