Quantifying the Current Form of Cricket Teams and Predicting the Match Winner

Abstract

The study tries to predict the outcome of Twenty20 cricket matches based on two prime skills of the game: batting and bowling. The two different measures, namely batting performance (BP) and adjusted combined bowling rate (ACBR), developed by Lemmer (2011, European Journal of Sport Science, vol. 13, pp. 200–206) and Lemmer (2012, European Journal of Sports Science, vol. 14, pp. S191–S196), respectively, are used to quantify the overall batting and bowling performances of cricket teams. The rationale of choosing BP is that it takes into consideration the match situation against which the runs are scored, and ACBR considers the strength of a batsman using wicket weights and adjusted number of runs conceded by the bowler along with the match situation. Both the measures, BP and ACBR, are combined to get the overall strength of a cricket team prior to the knock-out or play-off stage of any given tournament. Thereafter, the overall strength of a team is used to quantify the team’s current form. If the current form of Team A (say) is considerably higher than that of Team B (say), then it is predicted that Team A will win the match and vice-versa.