R

Spoiler alert - this post contains referene to proper cricket and cricketers.

Fantasy Bob has noticed a lot of reference to R in the press these days.  He understands this to refer to the calculation made by epidemiologists of how infections spread.  The higher R is, the more rapidly the infection spreads.  The present challenge is to be confident that the R for the corona virus is below one - in which case the disease would effectively be fizzling out.  This is the magic number which will allow current restrictions to be eased.  Needless to say its calculation is less than straightforward and subject to all manner of complicating factors.

How corona spreads exponentially - R=2

Cricketers are used to statistical complications associated with R, which they understand to refer to the number of runs conceded by a bowler.  It may not be as complicated as the epidemiologist's calculations, although the treatment of wides and no balls has seen many a lower league scorer cry quietly into their beer.

From the cricketer's point of view, R below 1 would be a considerable achievement in any spell of more than one or two overs.  The spinner who is tossed the ball for that single over before lunch and bowls a maiden doesn't really count.  But FB can remember playing alongside a young left armer, who has since gone on to greater things but was still in primary school that day as he made his senior debut, who walked off with magical figures of 3-3-0-4.  R well below 1. 

FB's contribution in that match was 3-18 - a respectable R for him - it could have been even more respectable as all his wickets came in one over - a triple wicket maiden.   Maybe this was the nearest he ever got to R equal to one, but he had to spoil it with these other overs.  At the other end of the scale, FB cannot recall the most runs he ever conceded in a spell - this is still subject to the Official Secrets Act.  He thinks that the most runs he ever conceded in a single over was 27 which was less than fun, although the batsman seemed to enjoy himself.  In Test cricket such a going over has actually been exceeded -  three times as it happens.  RJ Petersen, who had the misfortune to encounter Brian Lara in full flow, Jimmy Anderson, who suffered under the cosh of George Bailey, and earlier this year, Joe Root, who was given the treatment by Keshav Maharaj, all went for 28 off a single over.  FB modestly suggests that this is not a bad trio to be better than.

The highest number of runs conceded in a single Test innings was by Australian Chuck Fleetwood-Smith conceded 298 runs at the Oval in 1938 - England topped 900 and Len Hutton scored 364.  Though Chuck's R is stratospheric, he bowled 87 overs so his economy rate was a relatively respectable 3.62.  The highest number of overs bowled in an innings was by Sonny Ramadan at Edgebaston in 1957.  He bowled 98 overs and had a parsimonious economy rate of 1.82 - much nearer to what the epidemiologists would like to see.

On the whole, it is perhaps as well that cricketers are not in charge of the pursuit of R below 1.

Hutton demolishing Fleetwood -Smith's R