More news, from a somewhat unexpected source, of the perils of neglecting your maths.
The West Indies cricket team coach, John Dyson, misread a scoring system table on which hinged a crucial decision in the nation’s one-day international match against England. As reported in the Daily Mail:
This first one-day international was reaching a thrilling climax before the spectators and the best interests of the game were ill-served when Dyson, West Indies’ Australian coach, mis-read the Duckworth-Lewis scoring charts and accepted an offer for bad light even though West Indies were behind by one run. In effect, they forfeited the first one-day international.
Given that the niceties of cricket scoring are, frankly, beyond me I won’t attempt to investigate the nature of the errant maths. But it’s worth pointing out that, given the importance of maths in sport, it would seem unwise with hindsight to have employed a coach whose own way with numbers was lacking.
Maybe, as we always suggest, he would do with a little online maths tutoring…
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