Ah, the joys of cricket.

Logically, and as a disinterested observer, I suppose that they had four wickets in hand. A bit like degrees of freedom in statistics, each remaining wicket is an independent variable capable of influencing the result.

The first team, having no opportunity to use their remaining wickets to influence the results, must win by runs instead.

Handle9: Yip, the number of wickets remaining is the resource left to be consumed by the chasing team. If 10 wickets are consumed the chasing team loses.

A win chasing by 1 run or 5 runs doesn't show the level of dominance. A win chasing by 9 wickets is a thrashing, a win by 1 wicket is a nail biter.

Balls remaining generally only matters in limited overs cricket, it's not such a big deal in first class or test cricket.

I get that, and also that say a game was won with 5 overs left, you need to convert that to a number that shows the level of the result, much like Duckworth-Lewis adjusts the scores for parity, But SA didnt win with 5 overs left, they won by one hit, with 1 ball remaining. Winning by four wickets sound slike a big win, but NZ used just one wicket more

Still seems bizarre

What if NZ scored 210/2, and SA scored 211/9 with one ball to spare, whats the score then?

tdgeek:

 

Handle9: Yip, the number of wickets remaining is the resource left to be consumed by the chasing team. If 10 wickets are consumed the chasing team loses.

A win chasing by 1 run or 5 runs doesn't show the level of dominance. A win chasing by 9 wickets is a thrashing, a win by 1 wicket is a nail biter.

Balls remaining generally only matters in limited overs cricket, it's not such a big deal in first class or test cricket.

 

I get that, and also that say a game was won with 5 overs left, you need to convert that to a number that shows the level of the result, much like Duckworth-Lewis adjusts the scores for parity, But SA didnt win with 5 overs left, they won by one hit, with 1 ball remaining. Winning by four wickets sound slike a big win, but NZ used just one wicket more

 

Still seems bizarre

 

What if NZ scored 210/2, and SA scored 211/9 with one ball to spare, whats the score then?

 

 

 

Then SA would have won by 1 wicket

Looking at it from outside, it must seem a little confusing, but it makes perfect sense (to me anyway).

South Africa had 4 wickets in hand - they could have lost three more and still had a chance of winning the game. NZ needed to take 10 wickets to stop them winning, therefore NZ lost by not taking 4 wickets more than they did - SA won by 4 wickets.

If NZ had bowled SA out (taken all 10 wickets) NZ would have won by the number of runs SA still had to score, as that was the number of runs NZ had in hand.

I agree it must sound a bit silly to the non cricket person however it makes logical sense to me.

What an awesome game though it was good to see NZ put up a good fight (unlike the T20!). SA are a bloody good team its going to be a super tough series.

because if nz got one more wicket they wouldn't have won the game. to get a team out you need to take 10 wickets hence they won by 4 wickets as that's what nz failed to take

xcon:

 

tdgeek:

 

Handle9: Yip, the number of wickets remaining is the resource left to be consumed by the chasing team. If 10 wickets are consumed the chasing team loses.

A win chasing by 1 run or 5 runs doesn't show the level of dominance. A win chasing by 9 wickets is a thrashing, a win by 1 wicket is a nail biter.

Balls remaining generally only matters in limited overs cricket, it's not such a big deal in first class or test cricket.

 

I get that, and also that say a game was won with 5 overs left, you need to convert that to a number that shows the level of the result, much like Duckworth-Lewis adjusts the scores for parity, But SA didnt win with 5 overs left, they won by one hit, with 1 ball remaining. Winning by four wickets sound slike a big win, but NZ used just one wicket more

 

Still seems bizarre

 

What if NZ scored 210/2, and SA scored 211/9 with one ball to spare, whats the score then?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then SA would have won by 1 wicket

 

Thats my point

Last night, SA won on the second last ball, using only one more wicket than NZ, but thats a 4 wicket win. Big win, 4 wickets, its almost half the 10 required to be bowled out

But if we lost at the last ball using 2 wickets and SA used 9, its the same close match, but we out performed SA, albeit losing by a couple of runs at the extreme end of the match. My point is that the silly scoring dosnt reflect the game. Winning 21-20 is a close match, 21-12 is a very good win. By 4 wickets or in my example, by 1 wickets doesnt reflect the end result. But all semantics I guess

Jase2985:

 

because if nz got one more wicket they wouldn't have won the game. to get a team out you need to take 10 wickets hence they won by 4 wickets as that's what nz failed to take

 

No, SA got a 4 on second last ball, if that ball, we got a wicket, they get a 4 on the last ball and win

Is it really worth arguing over this in a game that has googlys, silly mid-ons, cow corners and royal ducks? :P 

you missed the point, they in my statement that you bolded is nz.  nz had to get 4 wickets to win, they didn't so SA won by the amount of wickets nz didn't get.

if nz had won they would of won by the number of runs they were ahead of sa by

sidefx:

 

Is it really worth arguing over this in a game that has googlys, silly mid-ons, cow corners and royal ducks? :P 

 

And left right out, or is that baseball?  :-) 

You have probably answered my initial post!

Jase2985:

 

you missed the point, they in my statement that you bolded is nz.  nz had to get 4 wickets to win, they didn't so SA won by the amount of wickets nz didn't get.

 

if nz had won they would of won by the number of runs they were ahead of sa by

 

I'm not missing any point. In my two examples, they win by 4 wickets or 1 wicket, that does not reflect the actual game, as a 21-20  or 21-12 does. I fully get what a win by 4 wickets means, but in two VERY close games, you do not get a VERY close scoreline to reflect the result, thats all. 21-20 is VERY close, 21-12 isnt. In my example, we did FAR better, albeit just lost at the very end but you can't see that in the score, in that we lost 2 wickets and they lost 9 to get virtually the same score. 

yes but the example you are using is rugby which has 1 variable, the score, cricket has 2 the score and the wickets

Jase2985:

 

yes but the example you are using is rugby which has 1 variable, the score, cricket has 2 the score and the wickets

 

 

 

 

 

My example wasnt rugby, it was a scoreline. Could be table tennis, or any sport that score 1 point per goal etc. Rugby actually has more than one variable as a try is 5 or 7, penalty is 3, so I didn't use rugby as an example. But even there 21-12 or 21-9 is more meaningful

I get the reason. As others have stated and I have already said. Cricket wickets dont reflect the game. If the game was won by the side batting first, then winning by 1 run or 50 runs is meaningful