Over 10 years ago I wrote a piece based on a paper by Brendon Brewer from the University of New South Wales that provided a way to model batter’s final scores in Test innings.

In that paper he assumes that, for most batters, each Test innings plays out over two phases: an initial phase, before the batsman is said to be "set" and during which he is more susceptible to dismissal, and a second and final phase during which his probability of dismissal slowly declines as each run is scored and asymptotes towards some fixed value.

Back in 2020 I wrote a piece here about the comparative performance of UK and Australian Chasers, and I would refer you back to that piece if you want to know more about the data set I’m using for this new article. This time, I’ll only be providing an update on the relative performances of the UK Chasers alone, using data from the first ever UK Chase show back on 29 June 2009, all the way through to 24 October 2025.

Back in late 2024 I wrote a blog post because I had recently started watching repeats of a British game show called Winning Combination that aired in 2020 and 2021 and in which nine contestants, numbered 1 to 9, answer questions in an attempt to become a part of a “final combination”.

That combination is simply the four numbers associated with the successful contestants and becomes the prize pool to be divided evenly amongst them if they complete a final challenge.