Sorry, I wanted to add one more thing about Moneyball: the book isn’t just about quants and numbers; it’s also — I’m told — about challenging conventional wisdom.
So, let’s talk about cricket Moneyball moments. One off the top of my head: Tiger Pataudi, realizing he can’t intimidate other teams with pace, decides he’ll just use spin, over and over again. Who says you can’t waste the new ball?
Spin quartet, voila (from BBC):
Former bowling stars Bishen Singh Bedi and EAS Prasanna credited Pataudi with forging India’s devastating spin bowling attack in the 1970′s and 1980′s.
“His faith in the spinners was absolute and we all prospered under his captaincy .. We won’t find the likes of him in a long, long time. His voice cannot be filled. A great, great chapter of Indian cricket has come to a close,” Bedi said.
Prasanna said Pataudi was “primarily responsible for developing India’s spin quartet in an aggressive role similar to what the West Indians had later in form of the pace quartet”.
You have any? (Moneyball moments, I mean.)
[...] finally watched Moneyball last night (I blogged about the movie here and here). While I agree with Russ that the movie’s message — statistics yields better sporting [...]