Sports Letter: Leagues ahead

Sir: How do you decide which is the best team sport in the world? To answer this question you need a way of measuring 'best'. To me for a sport to be termed best it needs to be exciting, entertaining, skilful and lots of action in it.

In ball sports the ball needs to be on the field of play in order for this to happen, so the ball has to be as I term it 'live' for the maximum entertainment.

To answer the original question, I took three major team sports - football, rugby union and rugby league - to see which was the best. To be able to do this I calculated the amount of time the ball was live in three televised matches: Oxford University v Cambridge University (RU), Inter Milan v Norwich City (Football) and St Helens v Warrington (RL). The respective percentages were 39 per cent, 59 per cent and 74 per cent.

This means that logically rugby league has the most chance of being exciting, entertaining, skilful and action packed, therefore rugby league could be said to be best team ball sport in the world.

Yours,

R J WOOD

Wakefield

17 March

Letters for publication in the sports pages should be marked 'For publication' and should include both daytime and evening telephone numbers. They should be sent to the Sports Editor, The Independent, 40 City Road, London, EC1Y 2DB. They may also be sent by fax to 071-956 1894. Letters may be shortened for reasons of space.