With the coverage of the final of the Challenger Series from India being interrupted by rain, Sky had to find some means of filling the time. Eventually they went to repeats of previous action from the series, but before they got there Charles Colville and Mark Ramprakash spent a fair amount of time talking about the up-coming Champions Trophy series (which appears not to have an apostrophe at all, Deanna, if you are reading this). Ramps made a very interesting point about bat selecton for a tournament in India. Indian pitches, in general, have far less bounce than pitches in England and Australia. Consequently Indian batsmen spend a lot more time playing straight drives on the half-volley than playing cross-batted shots at waist-high balls. Because of this they prefer bats with the weight distribution biased more towards the toe of the bat, whereas batsmen in England and Australia prefer bats with the “middle” (ie the median weight point) higher up. I’m guessing that this isn’t an issue with baseball, and that all baseball bats have a standard weight distribution.

Talking of the Champions Trophy, I still have no idea what level of online coverage is going to be available, but it does occur to me that it is time I got on with writing the articles on “understanding cricket commentary” and “understanding cricket statistics”.