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9/29/2009

Cadel Evans - World Road Cycling Champion

I never thought I would see the day when Australia's great white cycling hope Cadel Evans actually attacked. After 2 years of wheel-sitting to get himself 2 second places in Le Tour De France in '07 and '08, he completely ballsed up the '09 edition. He suffered from a throat infection and dropped down the leaderboard like a boulder attached to an anchor. However, a podium place (3rd on paper, 2nd once Valv.piti gets suspended for doping in the Operation Puerto affair) in a Vuelta showed signs that Evans was coming back. Then he exploded in the World Championships in Mendrisio.

After some great support from his Aussie teammates (who, unlike those at Silence are not useless) in bringing back the breakaways and keeping him in the right place, a small group of 20 or so (including Evans and Gerrans for AUS) was formed by a Spartacus attack. Several more attacks later and the group was down to 8 odd, with Gerro dropped. There were 3 Spaniards in the group, Valverde, Rodriguez and Sammy Sanchez while no other nation had any more than 1 (Kolobnev, Evans, Cancellara, Kroon, Cunego, Gilbert). Rodriguez blasted off the side through a gap in the road, with Kolobnev following him. This looks like the defining attack. Evans sprints across the gap, closing them down. No-one else can follow Evans across. Cancellara tries in vain to bring the trailing group forwards. They hit the last climb of the day. Evans goes hard, blasting away from the other two. Rodriguez is spent, he went away in an earlier break also. Kolobnev tries desperately to up the pace, but he can't match Evans. Rodriguez keeps following Kolobnevs wheel, but has nothing left to give. Cancellara has no friends in the chase group and they can't catch the duo of Kolobnev and Rodriguez. Meanwhile Evans is time-trialling at the front, even opening up a gap. No-one can catch him, he wins! Kolobnev 2nd, Rodriguez 3rd. Gerro got 10th, continuing his record of top 10 places in classics.

So thats what can happen if Cadel actually attacks and has support from his team. Probably the biggest win in Australian professional road cycling history. Way to end the season on a high. Imagine how long the mechanics will take to change his wheels now that he has the rainbow jersey curse?


9/18/2009

AFL Dream Team 2010 Player Profile: Andrew Mackie

Vital Statistics:
Name: Mackie, Andrew
Team: Geelong
Age:25
Position: Back
2010 Price: $365,100
2009 Avg: 83.1 from 21 games
Historical Avgs: 91 from 18 in '08, 83 from 21 in '07, 70 from 14 in '06, 59 from 7 in '05, 36 from 13 in '04
Pros:
-Was below par at the start of the year, sucking his season average down
-Averaged a gun (as a defender) 91 in '08
-Plays 3rd tall defender/general mid-sized defender and so can play freely
-Is only 25, so he should keep improving for a couple of years
-Gets more kicks than handballs and plenty of marks around the back


Cons:
-Has never played 22 games in a season, although has only been a regular for the past 3 years
-Historic backman averages suggest he doesn't have any more than 10 ppg of possible improvement
-If Harry Taylor gets dropped, then he might have to play 2nd key tall

Good Luck Result: 21 games at 94 ppg
Bad Luck Result: 16 games at 84 ppg

At a Glance: Good player who should improve on 2009 figures

9/12/2009

Science of Cricket - Drift and Dip

This is the last of a series of posts on the science of cricket. Its not really related to the others, conventional swing, reverse swing and contrast swing except that it is science and cricket related. Reading the other posts first may also help you to understand the terminology used here. When a spinner bowls, a batsman can be 'beaten in flight' or comentators may refer to the drift of a ball or the dip. This is due to a phenomenon known as the Magnus Effect.

Consider first a non-spinning ball moving through a steady fluid flow as seen below. There are no variations in the flow field between the top and bottom sides
of the ball and so there is no irregular movement. As usual, I've
just mined the net for images that will be useful, this ones from google knowledge.
However, then consider if you add spin to the ball, speeding up the flow on the top and slowing down the flow on the bottom as the fluid from the boundary layer of the ball will follow its rotation (image from bound vortex)

This speed change changes the flow field, increasing presure on the top of the ball and decreasing it on the bottom. The flow field for a spinning ball is something like this below from the avalanche center.

Because the pressure is higher below the ball than above, there will be a force towards the top (in this picture). This can be considered, and is valid for any representation where a ball spinning in two dimensions is in a fluid flow. So a purely leg or off-spinning ball (with no topspin) can be considered only from a cut away view that is like an extension of a crease line. And with a purely sideways spinning ball, the relevant fluid flow is only the slow drop of the ball (presuming no crosswind for this case). This will produce little (effectively no) movement due to the magnus effect. But if there is a cross wind, then dip or lift may be produced by this wind. For the example shown above, an off spinning ball with a wind from the bowler's left will cause lift. A similar situation happens when a leggie has a wind from his right. For most situations, dip produced by a cross wind is small, at least compared with that produced by over or under spin.

If you consider a solely overspinning ball, then you can take a side-on slice (along where a straight seam for a seam bowler would be) of the view. This means that the above diagram needs to be flipped vertically, as the ball pictured has underspin. The ball will then have the oncoming velocity of the ball's flight to use and so can produce a large down force, significantly affecting the ball's flight. An underspinning ball (like a flipper) will have a lift force and so will lose more vertical energy in flight, rebounding off the pitch lower. Where it gets even more interesting is when there is a cross wind and overspin. A topspinning ball will also have a small component of force sideways, in a similar manner to a ball with sidespin only. But in this situation the ball will produce a slight forwards or backwards force.

For sideways drift, the ball either has to spin as seen in a top-down plane which can happen with a different delivery style, or the drift is simply drag. This would happen if there was a cross wind which would move the ball in that direction. A ball which is spun in the top-down plane will have minimal deviation, so if a drifting ball seems not to spin then this is the source.

The Magnus Effect is also a major influence on other sports, particularly baseball and soccer curveballs. However, despite what some sources may say, the swing of a fast bowlers ball is not (and realistically cannot) be due to the Magnus Effect. That would require a large spin to be imparted in the top-down plane, which would result in a spinning seam. Common knowledge shows that even a wobbling seam can destroy a bowlers swing (and my earlier posts show why) so a ball that spins like a top? Not a chance in hell.

External Links for Cricket Science:
The Science of Swing Bowling (I disagree with Mehta on some corollories of his theories, but well worth a read. Many other sites just rip off his ideas without the fluid dynamics fundamentals to assert anything different)
Cricket in Full Swing(PDF, not sure about the dimpled/furry theory of his)
Cricket Ball Swing on stadiumturf.com
Why a cricket ball swings (also contains a bit on the Magnus Effect)
The Magnus Effect (actually as much about swing as the Magnus Effect)
The Magnus Effect : Why Pitches Move (not actually about cricket pitches spinning their way around the world, but a post on baseball aerodynamics)
Analytic Functions, the Magnus Effect, and Wings (very equation heavy, only worth looking at if you have an idea of potential flow analysis already. Also not directly cricket related.)

Is there anything you disagree with, or that I've missed? Drop me a comment and we can get into some heated intellectual discussion.

9/09/2009

AFL Dream Team 2010 Player Profile: Luke Hodge

Vital Statistics:
Name: Hodge, Luke
Team: Hawthorn
Age:25
Position: Back/Centre
2010 Price: $366,800
2009 Avg: 83.5 from 19 games
Historical Avgs: 97 in '08, 95 in '07, 90 in '06, 101 in '05, 74 in '04
Pros:
-Has averaged 90 or above for the past 4 seasons before '09
-Dropped his average in '09 due to an interrupted pre-season, in '10 he should be back to previous form
-Played all 22 games in '06 and '07 showing durability
-Has never played less than 15 games in a season

Cons:
-Has been tagged more in '09 so he may never get back up to his peak of over 100 ppg

Good Luck Result: 22 games at 98 ppg
Bad Luck Result: 18 games at 87 ppg, cops a heavy tag

At a Glance: A gun who historically should average at least 10 ppg more than his price

9/06/2009

AFL Dream Team 2010 Player Profile: Tom Swift

Vital Statistics:
Name: Swift, Tom
Team: West Coast
Age:19
Position: Centre
2010 Price: $301,400
2009 Avg: 68.6 from 10 games
Historical Avgs: N/A
Pros:
-Averaged 95.6 over the last 5 games of '09
-Only 1 score below 85 in those 5 games
-Sucked his price down with 4 games under 45 in mid-season
-Has proven his ability to dominate a game in underage ranks

Cons:
-Has historically been injury prone, missed most of '07 and '08 with injury
-Could be dropped if he has a bad patch like in mid-season '09

Good Luck Result: 20 games at 95 ppg
Bad Luck Result: 4 games at 60 ppg, out with a season long injury

At a Glance: Potential gun worth the risk


9/04/2009

AFL Dream Team 2010 Starts Now!

The regular season of Dream Team is finished for 2009. So what should you do with your miserable lives for the next seven months? You can play Finals Dream Team for the first of those, but a four week competition where your team will change completely every week cannot compete with a proper Dream Team. You could play a Dream Team for another sport such as A-League soccer (except that you have missed the first 5 rounds) or NBL basketball. But I have a better solution that your Dream Team will thank you for. Give your team a big pre-season.

Even if you are not a Dream Team fanatic, you should note down the players you think have finished well this year and should improve next year. Right now, they will be fresh in your mind and this can make the difference betwen picking a Higgins and a Skipworth next year.

A genuine Dream Teamer can take this to the next level by combining gut feel with proper statistics and the opinions of those who should know better. You cannot yet plan your whole team for next year, because the salary cap, magic number and rookie prices (as well as what rookies will be where) are still unknown. But this shouldn't stop you from putting together a shortlist of players to consider. Fanfooty has tried to put together a 2010 planner, which should give you an idea of whether your team will fit under the salary cap. You need to sign up for a free fanfooty asccount to do this. Look for gun players who have been below par this year in comparison to previous years or young players who will improve next year.

To help you do this, FFGenie will give you all the Dream Team stats you could possibly need from this year. It can be a bit overwhelming at first, but it is easy enough to use. Just remember, if you are a first time user you need to click on Update all Rounds and then save the file. You can filter the stats almost any way you want to try to find that improving gun.

For data before this year, there are two methods. You can look up the player in the 2009 AFL prospectus book which gives you the advantage of all the players stats, so you can tell if they are a good Dream Teamer (lots of marks and tackles as well as touches) or just a good player. If you don't have the prospectus then you can use fanfooty's player search option to get past stats. The Prospectus is recommended if you have it.

You should also keep an eye out for players other people are recommending, to atleast do a check on them and see if they might be worthy selections. Information is power in Dream Team, so keep your ear to the ground. Dream Team Talk will give regular pre-season updates and should be one of your main sources in-season for Chook's Rooks and Calvin's Captains. Fanfooty is another priority source, giving live scores during games, depth charts (once we get closer to the season) and their player stats records. The fanfooty blog can be useful, but its not as good as DTTalk. The Coaches Box is a regular in-season and irregular off-season Dream Team podcast. I will also be doing player profiles on smokies here through the off-season.

Now we come to the less reliable sources of information - forums. There are a few of note, where the unwashed masses meet to discuss their picks. Make sure you check up these players with your own research though, some people have been known to put false picks in an attempt to throw off the unwary. The biggest AFL forum in the world, BigFooty has a Dream Team section that is well patronised. There are also a few Dream Team specific forums that are worth checking out. Fanfooty has a forum, used by the type of obsessive Dream Teamers who watch their scores live. There is also a forum attached to Dream Team Talk although the comments pages for DTTalk posts generally act like a forum anywayand a specific Dreamteamforum.

This should be enough info for you to start planning your assault on the Dream Team Premiership in 2010, so get to it and stay tuned for player profiles here on the Rushed Behind.


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