Cricket's average-busting mathematician Tony Lewis pulls up stumps

Eminent British mathematician Tony Lewis has died, aged 78. Lewis is famous for co-developing the Duckworth-Lewis method, a method of settling one-day cricket matches. For those unfamiliar with cricket, its infamously lengthy four or five-day matches can end in a draw, so players just live with rain interruptions. The game's …

[Mike Shepherd]

Hardy

Given his love of cricket, perhaps even G H Hardy (who expressed disdain for all "applied" mathematics) would have approved.

[Sean o' bhaile na gleann]

"...The game’s shorter forms were devised to produce a crowd advertisers-pleasing result in just one day..."

With no disregard intended to the sterling work done by Lewis and Duckworth - at least it kept this wonderful sport alive.

[MCMLXV]

Downvote. That's just offensively cynical. Despite your assertion of "no disregard intended" you've done exactly that. Didn't know the man personally, but given his credentials I'd say it's a fair bet that advertising wasn't a factor in his work.

[Dazed and Confused]

Limited over

"...The game’s shorter forms were devised to produce a crowd advertisers-pleasing result in just one day..."

Except there was a lot of limited over cricket back when it was shown on the Beeb and there wasn't any advertising to worry about.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Limited over

And it looked a lot more like cricket than the modern short forms. There was advertising back then, not that all those Rabbit banners on the boundaries did any good. And I assume those giant egg-cups were advertising something, whatever it might have been.

[ClockworkOwl]

Sad passing on many levels.

He was a friend to my father, who used to really look forward to their annual dinner.

RIP both of you.

[Aladdin Sane]

GNU Tony Lewis

Mind how you go

[Ochib]

Frank Duckworth

must age 6 years in 8 months to win.

[Doctor Syntax]

I just checked to see if he was also the Tony Lewis who played for England and later became a cricket journalist. He wasn't. However the Wonkypedia entry for the player shows him as having died on April 1st as well. Outstanding coincidence or wonky editor? I'll settle for the latter whilst wondering of the statistician could have estimated the probability of the former.

[strum]

> if he was also the Tony Lewis who played for England

Yeah. I had always assumed it was him. I even have a (false, I now know) memory of him explaining the method.

[Doctor Syntax]

As a pundit he could have explained it without having been the author so not necessarily a false memory.

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

Looks like it's been corrected on WP, wonky editor indeed.

Per Cricinfo:

The late Tony Lewis of DL(S) fame

Tony Lewis, former England captain

[Rathernicelydone]

The Duckworth Lewis Method

Great first album and their video for Meeting Mr Miandad is superb: https://youtu.be/t3JA-417V_M

[Cederic]

22 off one ball

This is not impossible at all. Just somewhat unlikely. I believe the current record is 286 runs from a single delivery.