# Optimized for Something other than Winning or: How Cricket Resists Moloch and Goodhart's Law

Recently, there has been some controversy in the world of cricket. The full details are described well in [this piece](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/jul/05/a-crease-a-stumping-and-spirit-of-the-game-the-ashes-controversy-explained) but the gist of it is as follows. During a game between Australia and England, after the ball had been bowled, the English batsman Jonny Bairstow stepped forward thinking that the game was no longer in play. This allowed the Australian wicketkeeper Alex Carey to [throw the ball at the stumps](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhVp2Upr4To) and get Bairstow out. As a result, Bairstow had to leave the field and later that day, Australia won the game. Would England have won were it not for this piece of quick thinking from Carey? It's hard to say, but the game certainly would have been a lot closer.

So why is this controversial?  After all, Carey's actions were completely within the rules of the game and all of the umpires and players agreed that Bairstow indeed out. The controversy stems from a nebulous concept known as 'the spirit of cricket'. The 'spirit of cricket' is mentioned in the preamble to the official [Laws of Cricket](https://www.lords.org/mcc/about-the-laws-of-cricket) and broadly encompasses good sportsmanship and fair play. But the fact that it is not properly defined means that different people will have different views on what kind of actions are within the spirit of the game. Pat Cummins, the Australian captain [believes that Carey's actions were within the spirit of the game](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO3fx1aT4RQ), and the Ben Stokes, the English captain [believes that they were not](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ocmX4-aJuM). Various media outlets have taken sides on this issue.

To be clear, the 'spirit of cricket' is not just 'good sportsmanship applied when convenient'. Players often make choices that are within the spirit of the game which put their team at a severe disadvantage. Indian player MS Dhoni famously [withdrew his appeal](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fz3QdbU_V0) against Ian Bell. Within the rules of the game Bell had been run out in a moment of confusion but Dhoni believed that it was not within the spirit of the game, and let Bell come back to bat. The spirit of the game is something that spectators and players genuinely care about. Certain historical cricketing episodes, such as the [underarm incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underarm_bowling_incident_of_1981), and the [bodyline tour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_cricket_team_in_Australia_in_1932%E2%80%9333) were within the rules but still evoke strong emotions to this day[^g11xs3xftc]. Other tactics, like [Mankading](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mankading_incidents_in_cricket) (where a bowler hits the stumps during his run-up to 'run out' an over-eager batsman who has started running) are allowed by the rules but rarely occur, though they still [happen occasionally](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUqLF30PDzE), generating controversy when they do and exist in a grey area with respect to 'the spirit'.

Isn't this stupid? To have an extra set of 'rules' which aren't really rules and everyone disagrees on what they actually are and you can choose to ignore them and still win the game? I would argue that, in fact, it is this strange, poorly-defined concept of 'the spirit of cricket' which makes cricket entertaining to watch and helps it avoid pitfalls present in many other sports.

Take football (soccer[^kxnxhlc2m69]) which is arguably the most popular spectator sport worldwide. Presently, one of the key ways that players can get an advantage for their team is to be 'fouled' by a member of the opposing team. Examples of 'fouls' include tripping or pushing. In order to convince the referee that they have been fouled, football players will often [dramatically fall to the floor,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yArNhh_ZFfc) screaming and clutching some body part, only to get up [moments later,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqTC9guZO0Q) seemingly unhurt. While 'diving' (attempting to deceive the referee by pretending to be fouled) is against the rules of football, it is not against the rules to draw attention to a potential foul by exaggerating your injury. As a result, many high-level games become competitions as to who can get the referee to award them a penalty or free kick and players end up spending significant amounts of time writhing on the floor. Ask any football fan what their least favourite part of the modern game is and they will probably point to this. If football had something like 'the spirit of cricket' maybe this behaviour would be less common.

The way that players play football, (and many other sports) is optimized purely for winning. As a result, a few strategies come to dominate and everyone who doesn't follow them loses. I am told by friends who follow baseball that the ['Moneyball'](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moneyball) approach to baseball is now ubiquitous, leading all teams to play in very similar, optimized styles. This [blog](https://medium.com/@lindynewsletter/refinement-culture-51d96726c642) on 'Refinement Culture' makes the case that, across many sports, strategies are becoming homogenised. 

A similar criticism has been levelled against chess. At high levels players will memorise long lines of opening theory. Players who do not do this lose. But as a result, it will often be over twenty moves into a game before a 'novelty' is played. Memorising long opening lines is a good strategy for winning, but the advantage is negated if everyone does it and the game becomes less exciting. Bobby Fischer tried to remedy this by creating a chess variant with [random](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer_random_chess) the positions of the pieces on the board, hoping that this would engender a game with greater emphasis on creativity [^bemeccnkavp]. Fischer was partially successful . While Fischer Random chess is popular, it is still nowhere near as popular as regular chess.

These are all examples of [Goodhart's law](https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/goodhart-s-law). Having a game where both sides are trying to win makes for an exciting game. But if both teams are only optimizing for winning, they will hit upon strategies (such as diving in football and memorising lines in chess) which are effective at winning but boring to watch.

This is why it is important that the 'spirit of cricket' is never properly codified into laws. If it was, then players would simply game the rules and find the most successful strategy that operates within the laws of the game and the process would be Goodharted.  I suspect that this is the reason that cricket seems to have resisted the tendency towards 'refinement' that is present in other sports. If anything, cricket is becoming more baroque and varied. The last ten years of cricket have seen several new types of shots such as the [reverse sweep](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnSku_aJIzw), the [switch hit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWSOLsz8zgQ) , and the [scoop](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFZerO-Se3I) all played commonly at high levels[^c56ik61zkfp].  

Due to it's nebulous and poorly-defined nature, the 'spirit of cricket' cannot be easily Goodharted. It also helps solve the coordination problem inherent in many sports. There exist many strategies (such as diving in football, or Mankading in cricket, or memorizing opening theory in chess) which give you an advantage if you are the only one using them but if everyone uses them, the advantage is negated and the quality of the game becomes worse. Everyone ends up back where they started, and playing a slightly different, slightly less fun version of the game. Then the process repeats, the tactical arms race continues, and the quality of the game decreases. Every individual and team behaves rationally, yet the endgame is result that nobody wants. This is an example of a bad game-theoretic equilibrium, resulting in [Moloch-like](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/) dynamics. But in cricket when someone tries a new tactic, it is followed by discussions of 'the spirit' which allow players to decide if this is the kind of thing they want to allow all other teams to do. If it is, then the tactic is declared 'within the spirit' (an example of this is the [switch shot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switch_hit)). If it is not, either the rules of the game are changed (as in the case of [underarm bowling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_(cricket)#Modern-day_underarm_bowling) or [bodyline](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodyline)) or the tactic continues existing in a grey area, within the rules, but outside of the spirit (like Mankading).

I don't know if there is a general lesson to be drawn from this, other than 'it is hard to Goodhart when the thing you are optimizing is poorly-defined'. It strikes me that the 'spirit' presents a novel way of avoiding race-to-the-bottom Moloch dynamics which could be useful. I also don't know much about other sports, so would be interested to hear if something equivalent exists in other games.

[^g11xs3xftc]: The rules surrounding underarm bowling and bodyline theory have since been revised, but they were both within the rules at the time they were played. 

[^kxnxhlc2m69]: I am English, so I have to call it 'football' not 'soccer', otherwise the King will rescind my crumpet license. 

[^bemeccnkavp]: It should be taken for granted that these criticisms are not detracting from the talent and skill of professional chess and football players. It is the incentives for them to play in this way that I am criticizing. 

[^c56ik61zkfp]: Technically, most of these shots have been around for a long time, but were not often played. The point is that they are becoming more common, not less.