Our last two T20s raised the question of how many options the skipper has in this form of cricket.

We thought at Middleton Stoney CC that par for our level of T20 was to score 140. On the Wednesday before last, we reached 141-5, with our number six run out on the last ball going for a third run, setting St Clements Strollers 142 to beat us, which would have been the second time this season. They were well short, on 97-9. If we had only scored 120, of course, they might still have won in the last over. And if, as has been the case in some previous T20s, we had only made 100, it would have been a tense finish.

By losing the toss, not batting, not bowling but taking a sharp catch, I thought I had played my part in our fourth victory in successive games. As I explained in #18, I had rushed back from a funeral so was pleased to have played at all and to have won an enjoyable match against friendly but competitive opposition.

This past Wednesday was our final T20 of 2019. A very strong side was fielded by South Oxfordshire Amateurs who scored 149. It was a relief to discover that Yorkshire had scored 255 that night against Leicestershire, which I am taking as a sign that we did well to restrict our opponents to 149. We needed to hit six sixes in the last over to win the match but failed to do so, although I did double my run tally for the season with a single off the last ball.

In our version of T20, bowlers can have a maximum of 4 overs each. St Clements Strollers, for example, used five bowlers. Their captain who was one of the opening bowlers held back one of his quota and bowled the last over. We had eleven bowlers but I used six. The opening pair bowled three each, the middle pair bowled their full four each, then our other two bowled three each.

We could have played it differently. Our keeper, who opened the batting, is a good bowler. The other opener and our number five are right-handed batsmen who are lethal slow left-arm round the wicket spinners in the nets. Our number three batsman is an accomplished off-spinner who can also bowl well at medium-pace. With myself, we were the five who did not get a chance to bowl in that T20. Instead, I opened with our numbers 8 and 10, then our numbers 7 and 9 came on, before we ended the game with our numbers 4 and 6. The main principle here, apart from winning the match, was to make sure that those who did not bat got to bowl.

I like the alternative idea of the ten players who are not keeping wicket each bowling two overs and we have tried that before but quite a few of our bowlers are much better in their third and/or fourth overs than in their first two. On the other hand, there can be a value in T20 games in preventing the batsmen from getting used to a bowler. On balance, it seems fairer to give those who have not batted at least a three over spell. If you bowl out the opening pair, however, you reduce the options if, for example, the outcome of the match is in doubt or is a foregone conclusion. Those who do not get to bat or to open the bowling deserve a full four overs. Then I thought we should round off the match with our top wicket-takers out of those who batted.

Given that we do not have a restriction on batsmen retiring after they have scored 50, so they can face all 20 overs, it seems to me odd that there is so much interest in exactly how many deliveries the bowlers have. And I realise that in professional T20 cricket, the main point is to win. Still, I am intrigued by the permutations in friendly club cricket and how best to involve everyone. Even if the skipper were to use all ten bowlers, for example, would one over each, and then repeat, be better or worse than giving them two over spells?

Of course, in one sense it doesn’t matter and we might as well say, ‘it’s up to you, skip’, but it turns out that almost everyone has an opinion on the numbers and the best sequence.

This Wednesday, in our final T20 of the season, I had my last chance to determine the bowlers and their order in this twenty over format. This time, we used three bowlers downhill in spells of 4, 4 and 2 overs while uphill we used three who bowled 4, 3 and 3.

It is not just the choice of bowlers, then, but also the order and the length of spells which matter. When this issue is transplanted into wider life, the significance of the choices might be more dramatic. In universities, for instance, every seven years each subject presents for evaluation its best research in its best possible light, picking out certain work as having a particular impact in society. Again, colleagues can have strong views.

In politics, the order in which amendments are put can make a difference in Parliament, and the choice of who should be your bowlers or Cabinet ministers shapes the government.

In law, the composition of the panel of normally five but sometimes 7, 9 or 11 judges to hear a UK Supreme Court case can be decisive. The usual complement of our Supreme Court Justices is twelve but they can only sit in odd numbers, to avoid a tie (although, now, of course, we might think about a Super Over tie-breaker).

Which brings me to the point. In between our last two evening matches, I asked the best mathematician I know how many permutations there are for the skipper to consider in a T20 under our rules, of 4 overs maximum each, and if, like MSCC, even the keeper can bowl. She tells me that the captain has 55 possible combinations of 20 overs for 11 people with a maximum of 4 overs each – e.g. 5 bowlers have 4 overs each, 10 bowlers have 2 overs each, and so on. Her first reaction, therefore, was that the number of possible permutations (where order matters) is 994,316,400. I asked if it is OK to round that up to one billion? #uptoyouskip. What if we dropped the 4 over maximum? Then there would be 672 quintillion permutations, whatever a quintillion is.

So while the skipper is fielding and possibly bowling, he is also running through options. At the start of the game, when you think you have charted a course through the billion sequences and settled on one of your normal opening bowlers to start, he has alternative replies: either sizing up the strength of the opening batsmen and suggesting that the captain should give someone else a chance, or saying, ‘Up to you, skip’. As the innings proceeds, the number of options decreases but the level of difficulty increases. When you add in the batting order and the field placings, of course, the numbers and the impact on the game escalate. Curiously, the decisions most likely to be criticised by team-mates, spectators or the opposition are the binary choice to bat or bowl first if the toss is won or, if the toss is lost, the prior binary choice of calling head or tails. There is an infinite amount of fun to be had in cricket, as in wider life, in second-guessing the skipper.