How there is a 99.8% chance that Champions
Trophy is fixed?
Three matches into the Champion’s Trophy, I got
a message with bookie predictions of all the matches. It made following the
tournament so much more fun. Each and every prediction has come true till now,
except a couple of rain affected matches. I am really not excited about today’s
big final, do not feel like watching it also!
Here are the predictions and against that the actual
results.
1.
India
– SA, India wins India
won
2.
Pak
– WI, WI wins WI
won
3.
Eng
– Aus, Eng wins Eng
won
4.
SL
– NZ, NZ wins NZ
won
5.
Pak
– SA, SA wins SA
won
6.
India
– WI, India wins India
won
7.
Aus
– NZ, Aus wins Washout, rain
8.
Eng
– SL, Eng wins SL won, forced due to match 7
9.
WI
– SA, WI wins Match tied, rain
10.
India
– Pak, India wins India
won
11.
Eng
– NZ, Eng wins Eng
won
12.
SL
– Aus, SL wins SL
won
13.
Eng
– WI semis, Eng wins Eng won,
but against SA
14.
India
– SL semis, India wins India won
15.
India
– Eng finals, India wins ???
- Prediction was for India to win all their matches, it happened.
- Prediction was for Pakistan to lose all their matches, it happened.
- Prediction was for India and England to top their groups and meet in final, it happened.
- Game 7 & 8 discrepancy – Game 7 was a washout, but made SL’s position tricky. Now they would not have qualified winning only one game as predicted (based on NRR). So the result of Game 8 had to be reversed so as to have an India – SL final as predicted
- Game 9 & 13 discrepancy – Game 9 was severely rain affected. We all know how the match got tied, Pollard getting out and rain coming immediately after with the teams tied on D/L score. As a result SA qualified for the semis instead of WI ahead on NRR. However, that did not deter an England victory in the semis.
Is it all a coincidence you tell me? Let us do
some math in that case. Forget the first three matches as I got the message
only before the fourth match. Forget matches 7, 8 and 9 as explained above.
Still 8 match results were predicted correctly. If we assign 0.5 as the
probability for any team winning, the probability of 8 predictions coming true
would be 0.5^8 = 0.004 or 0.4%! If India win today, the number will become
0.2%. Would I be able to make a statement like “The entire champion’s trophy
was fixed with 99.8% probability” and get away with it? J
(For all the skeptics, please do watch the “Fallen
Heroes” series on youtube. It will be an eye opener. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBI4figu67c)
