The start of the new English cricket season reminds me of that moment a few weeks ago when England were about to win the T20 World Cup.  West Indies batsmen had a mountain to climb from their last over and Ben Stokes, England’s expert “death” bowler, was ready (Stokes had won the game for England in the semi final in similar circumstances). However (and this is a personal opinion) I think Stokes was already imagining his celebration, particularly to his nemesis Marlon Samuels, and his concentration wavered.

Carlos Brathwaite, West Indian batsman, had other ideas and England’s hopes disappeared in a blaze of sixes. His achievement lends itself to a form of GCSE Maths question proving popular with examiners. Namely the “reverse mean” question where pupils have to calculate not the average of a given set of numbers, rather the number needed to change an old mean to a new mean.

England cricket team had an average of 7.75 runs from their 20 overs. West Indies after 19 overs had averaged 7.21 runs per over. How many runs did they need from the last over to win the match ? (i.e. exceed England’s total by 1 run)  (See below for answer)

Although West Indian cricket has struggled of late, the win was eventually going to happen as they have a tremendous competitive spirit. As can be see in this fascinating BBC article about the use of gamification in Jamacan classes. A small company, Edufocal, has set up computer aided classrooms for core subjects like Maths which reward the children for scoring right answers. The company is growing and results are improving. Sponsorship from Virgin’s Branson Centre of Entrepreurship is helping.  Some of my pupils use CGP Mathsbuster which has a similar philosophy – bronze, silver, gold trophies are awarded as pupils move through the questions.  But in Edufocal’s case the prizes are real – cinema tickets etc ( funded by subscription).

And just to keep the Jamaican theme going, one of my favourite artists and songs is Bob Marley’s One Love, the video here being not in Jamaica but London, with a yound Suggs and Paul McCartney.

So, returning to the cricket, the final was featured in the “Cricinfo” website which specialises in statistical coverage of cricket matches and includes graphs which, while not exactly the same as in GCSE, do show the power of using visual techniques to bring numbers to life.

Carlos Brathwaite perhaps wasn’t thinking of solving a GCSE puzzle as he awaited Stokes’s first ball (a glance at the scoreboard may have been easier!) But if he was. here is what he would be calculating:

England’s average (mean) of 7.75 runs per over from 20 overs meant they scored 7.75 x 20 =155 runs in total. So West Indies needed to score 156 to win. But after 19 overs, their average was only 7.21 per over so they had scored 7.21 x 19 = 137 runs.  So from the last over they needed 156 minus 137 equals 19 runs to win. (In fact they scored 3 sixes from 3 balls, and another from the next for good measure, to win with 2 balls left. Bravo!)