Sport relies on rankings to determine who is the best, who is number one.
In most cases, they are taken as given, for example no-one would argue that Roger Federer is the best men's tennis player in the world, or Tiger Woods the best golfer.
But sometimes the computer throws up some curve balls that surprise even the purest of fans, and call into question how these stats are generated.Googlies
Cricket is one sport which often has a dark cloud of confusion thrown over it by muddy statistics.
It is impossible to argue that the Aussies aren't the best Test and One Day team in the World, and that's great (really great), but the best of the rest are constantly being muddled.
Maybe it doesn't matter, maybe we should all just make up our own statistics. Opinion based statistics, now there's a good idea!
Pie in the Sky
Another annoyance of statistics is their over-use during live sport for which the blame must lie with the producer.
Sky Sports tend to be the worst offender. At the weekend when watching the first of their 'Grand Slam Super Duper Sunday' football matches, my eyes were distracted from the hi-octane action to a stat-flash letting me know that both teams had won one corner each.
I didn't think it could get much more exciting but it did. The next flash told me that for the last 5 minutes Liverpool had 76% of possession.
Both these stats were not only unnecessary and blindingly obvious but also an annoying distraction from the action.
A Pick of the Rankings
Football, Cricket, Rugby, Tennis, Golf
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