Proof that computers have no place in cricket

SIR – At the close of an article (“Smart ball risks turning amateur cricket into a computer game”, telegraph.co.uk, November 16) extolling the glorious uncertainties of cricket, and deploring the proposal of playing with a so-called “smart ball”, Simon Heffer writes: “It can’t be long before computers can be fed details of players’ records, injuries, hangovers, ground conditions, weather and so on, and come up with a result without anyone actually having to turn up. Think I’m joking? Wait and see.”

Sadly for him, such an event, at

Test match level, has already occurred. In 1971, at the dawn of the computer era, Sydney hosted a “computer Ashes Test” between Australian and English stars from the preceding 50 years.

Mr Heffer’s criteria (excluding hangovers) were fed into a computer and, despite Don Bradman’s low first-innings score, Australia won. Happily, I believe such a travesty of the noble game has not been repeated.

John Kidd

Surfers Paradise, Queensland, Australia

June in An Almanac of 12 Sports, 1897, by William Nicholson (words by Rudyard Kipling)