Statattack! Tsunami ODI raises storm

MUMBAI: In the world of cricket statisticians, facts have made way for friction.
Number crunchers, led by the renowned Bill Frindall, are against the International Cricket Council’s decision of awarding the two-match World Cricket Tsunami Appeal (WCTA) series official one-day international status. The first game will be played in Melbourne on Monday and the second in India or Sri Lanka in February.
In an e-mail to Cricket Australia (CA) corporate communications officer Stephanie Beltrame, Frindall said: ‘‘Limited overs international status and records cover matches between national teams, not hot-potch multi-national games with no significance beyond fund raising. In no sense should the WCTA game qualify for inclusion. This ruling, which should be reversed immediately, is as bizarre as your recent one declaring that a match starts when the toss is made — a monstrous flouting of the Laws of Cricket. It will not have my support, and performances in Monday’s match will not be included in any records published under my name.’’
Dinar Gupte, president, Indian Statisticians and Scorers Association, was of a similar opinion and said the organisation was thinking of writing to the ICC about the matter. “Sympathy is one thing and rules another,� Gupte told TOI from Baroda. “It is wonderful that a match is being played for the tsunami-affected, but it cannot be official as it is not being contested by two countries.�
TOI stats man Anant Gaundalkar said that the ICC had not accorded official status to the Princess Diana benefit game in 1998. ‘‘How can they contradict themselves now?’’, he argued. ‘‘Moreover, a multinational match cannot be official. You cannot, for example, play Davis Cup with combination teams.’’
Frindall pulled out a page from history in his e-mail to Beltrame. He wrote, ‘‘The ICC, for whom I was then statistician, dealt with this matter following the Rest of the World vs England series in 1970, when we ruled that those five matches would not count in the official Test match records. And those games featured one international side.’’
Senior figures man Sudhir Vaidya, while opposing the ICC’s idea. “If Lara has 150 matches, we will have to add a footnote explaining that one of those was not for the WI.�