In Depth Data Analysis of Performance of Player and Various

Factors Impacting The Game of International Cricket across SENA

Countries
Name : Paras Thakan
Roll Number : 2314105379
Project Guide : Jagadeesh Naidu
Degree : Master of Business Administration
Specialisation : Analytics and Data Science
Introduction
• This project talks about how various parameters are considered and analyzed by sports
analysts to know the reason behind what cost them in losing or winning a match of
cricket.
• There are various factors which we will be talking about in this project report are
Stadiums, Pitches, Weather and Players.
• Pitches in countries like Australia and New Zealand have bouncy and fast pitches.
• England weather plays a huge role in swinging the deliveries, if the weather is dusky
whereas in sunny conditions the pitches in countries like England favors batting.
• Therefore, all in all this project report includes the data from stadiums dimension, types
of pitches, weather conditions and stats of last 5 years performance of 11-star players.
Objectives
• To understand how stadiums dimension effects the result of the match.
• To understand how different types of pitches can effect the result of the match.
• To understand how different types of weather can effect the result of the match.
• To understand how a star batsmen and star bowler can single handedly can win the match
for his team.
• To correlate between the above mentioned data and draw insights. Which are also verified
the data taken from ESPN Cricinfo.
Research Methodologies
• Exploratory study design is adopted for this project.
• The data includes both quantitative and qualitative data.
• The data has been collected from ESPN Cricinfo which is the best database for extracting
the data which is used by many sport analysts to analyze and interpret the data collected
from this database.
• This data collected and represented is only for the analysts to analyze, what should be the
team plan to win the match?
• The data contains no duplicates and some data types which are wrong have been corrected
and are represented in a tabular format.
• There are no null values and where there is no data I have used hyphens which can be
converted to 0 to go ahead for designing an algorithm for machine learning and artificial
intelligence related issues.
Data Collection and Interpretation
• Whenever the batsman is playing, he aims for the shorter boundaries whereas bowlers try
to force the batsman to hit towards the longer boundaries. If the batsman tries to play
against the line, the risk of him getting out increases.
• That's why in limited overs when bowlers are bowling in powerplay or death overs they
ball slower deliveries and bowl towards the longer side (offside/legside) depending on the
ground dimensions.
• That is how various grounds with various dimensions have a significant impact on the
result of the match.
• Freshness of the pitch is determined by the amount of grass present on it.
• More the amount of grass, the fresher the pitch will be and it will support fast bowlers
when the bowl is new but when the bowl gets old it will favor the batsman.
Data Collection and Interpretation
• Dry Pitch will favor the spin bowlers as more overs are bowled on such pitches there will
be formation of more cracks on the pitch.
• The Higher the height of the grass the more the bowl will skit on the pitch and there will
not be much turn on the bowl. These types of pitches will be very bouncy in nature.
• The shorter the height of the grass, the drier the pitch will be, the bounce on the pitch will
be very low and these types of pitches will favor spinners more.
• Wet Pitch is a type of pitch which has absorbed high amounts of water due to consistent
rainfall. These pitches usually favor the batsmen as the bowl gets wetter every time
bowlers bowl on such pitches.
• Dead Pitch is even drier than the dry pitch as it has no amount of grass on it and we can
see bowler's footmarks which are like dark spots on the pitch. These footmarks help the
spinner to get a huge turn on the bowl and completely change the game by their bowling.
Data Collection and Interpretation
• If the weather is dry then this will favor the spin bowlers but as the weather is dry and hot
it will impact the performance of players as the weather is dry. Dry weather helps the
spinners as it makes wide cracks to open up on the pitch easily.
• If the weather is very humid this will have a huge impact on the fitness of the players as
they will get dehydrated very quickly leading to cramps and impacting the player to
continue to play the match in pain or completely take rest skipping that match.
• Fast Bowlers get help from the clouds and the winds to get swing movement not only
through pitch but also in the air. This will lead to more deviations and will be very tough
for batters to face such deviations coming at them around 130-145 km/hr.
• Rainy weather is the most disturbing weather in a game. As it makes batting easy and
there is not much for spinners in it. Initially 30 minutes after rain it favours fast bowlers
but as the bowl gets older and pitch gets drier the batting becomes very easy.
Data Collection and Interpretation
• Data for star players for different players are generated in a particular format which is
shown in below images. For better understanding kindly have a look at project report to
get a more deeper insight.
Findings and Discussion
• The pitches which are flat and are having less grass will favor the batsmen more than
bowlers. Therefore, we can expect a high scoring match.
• The pitches which are having grass on it or are freshly prepared will favor fast bowlers
more and we can expect a competitive match, which will favor both batsman and bowlers
depending upon the weather conditions.
• The pitches which are old or are very dry, bowling more overs can lead to development of
cracks on the pitch which will make the bowl spin more than usual.
• If the weather is sunny, it will favor the batsman this will also depend upon the pitch the
player is playing on.
• If the player is playing in Hot and Humid condition the player can get dehydrated very
fast and if he doesn't hydrate his body frequently, he can get cramps quickly and can
impact his performance.
Findings and Discussion
• In rainy weather also it will not help the spinners as they can't grip the bowl properly and
the bowl skits instead of gripping on the pitch and turning. Though such a situation will
help fast bowlers to swing the bowl due to cloudy and windy weather.
• If the star player comes and plays a big knock for his team as a batsman or bowls a
beautiful spell taking key wickets can change the result of the match within a span of few
minutes.
Conclusion
• I would like to conclude that whatever the factors which I talked about in detail are
playing a significant role in the result of the match.
• These factors are analyzed properly and verified using the data which present in the
database of cricket. I am confident about my data and its evaluation as whenever we see a
match of cricket, commentators do talk about these factors and how they play an
important part in the result of the cricket match.
Recommendations
• I would recommend others to go in more depth understanding the game of cricket by
seeing the strengths of various cricket teams.
• I would also recommend trying to try taking more databases of emerging players by
studying their domestic performances.
• I would recommend others to make certain Artificial Learning algorithms which
automatically scrape the data from databases and give valuable insights without looking at
the data manually and draw insights. This will help new players to understand their game
more properly.
Limitation of the Study
• This project report talks about the dimension of cricket stadiums but one can go ahead
and find the data for average runs scored in 1st innings and 2nd innings and how it affects
the result of a cricket match.
• This project report does not talk about how different time of the day impacts the result of
the match.
• This report does not talk about on various grounds how toss also plays an important role
in the result of a cricket match.
• Lastly this project does not talk about the performances of recent emerging players and
how it will define the future of cricket.
• a researcher can take different players for different formats of cricket, will help a
researcher understand things in a better way. The result will then be more reliable.