{"id":70941,"date":"2018-12-11T14:46:59","date_gmt":"2018-12-11T13:46:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/2018\/12\/11\/the-spin-big-bashs-flipping-bats-recall-stories-of-cunning-ploys-with-tossed-coins\/"},"modified":"2018-12-11T14:46:59","modified_gmt":"2018-12-11T13:46:59","slug":"the-spin-big-bashs-flipping-bats-recall-stories-of-cunning-ploys-with-tossed-coins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/?p=70941","title":{"rendered":"The Spin | Big Bash\u2019s flipping bats recall stories of cunning ploys with tossed coins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When you look closely at the ritual, it begins to seem odd that cricket lets blind luck and \u2018dynamical bias\u2019 play such a large partWhen he was 14, Persi Diaconis packed a fresh deck of cards and a spare pair of socks into a knapsack and ran away from home to become a magician\u2019s assistant. He spent the next few years apprenticing with Dai Vernon, whose sleight of hand was so smart, so sharp, that he even beat Harry Houdini, who famously claimed he could pick any magic trick on the third go, until Vernon fooled him seven times in a row. They used to call Vernon \u2018the Professor\u2019, and now they do Diaconis, too. Because that\u2019s what he is. The Mary V Sunseri Professor of Statistics and Mathematics, to be exact, at Stanford, where he\u2019s been continuing his lifelong study of chance and probability.Diaconis made his name studying card shuffling, but he\u2019s also done a lot of work on the one part of a cricket match no one ever really stops to think about. The coin toss. \u201cWhen was the last time anyone watched the coin toss or really focused on it?\u201d says the head of the Big Bash, Kim McConnie. Which is why, this season, captains in the Big Bash won\u2019t be tossing coins but bats, \u201cspecially weighted to make sure that it is 50-50\u201d. They\u2019ll be calling \u201chills or flats\u201d, just like children playing backyard cricket. McConnie says: \u201cWe\u2019re making it much more relevant to families, we are creating a moment which is much more fitting with kids.\u201d Continue reading&#8230;<br \/>\nVia: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/2018\/dec\/11\/the-spin-hope-coin-toss-big-bash-cricket\" target=\"_blank\">The Spin | Big Bash\u2019s flipping bats recall stories of cunning ploys with tossed coins<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When you look closely at the ritual, it begins to seem odd that cricket lets blind luck and \u2018dynamical bias\u2019 play such a large partWhen he was 14, Persi Diaconis packed a fresh deck of cards and a spare pair of socks into a knapsack and ran away from home [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70941\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}