A Miss between the Cup and the sLip

A Miss between the Cup and the sLip

All of us who saw Mathew Wade on the TV on the 10th Nov 21, reach the impossible total to win for Australia, would vouch for the sheer thrill of the game of T20. The near month long bonanza; the T 20 world cup 2021 is held in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Oman from 17 Oct 21 and finishes on 14 Nov 21. Australia takes on their rival New Zealand in what is likely to be a lip-smacking contest in the finals on the 14 Nov 21.

For many in India, the world cup has been a complete disappointment. Nothing went as per the fans liking. It was not a script written in India. Especially when India had started as the favourites. Why? Difficult to answer. The IPL was expected to bring the superior experience to effect during the world cup. It turned out to be the other way around. There are many theories to India’s debacle.

‘Too much of cricket.’

 ‘Too much of money.’

‘IPL was preferred over the world cup.’

‘Players couldn’t care less as long as they got their money.’

‘BCCI had vested interests.’

‘Saurav Ganguly was against Ravi Shastri and Kohli.’

‘Life under a bubble is hell and saps the energy and motivation.’

At best, they all seem to be conspiracy theories. Some of them may be right; ‘like too much cricket’, but they all lack any scientific (read logical) explanation. Does it mean there is a scientific explanation for India’s woes in the T20 world cup? The answer is both a ‘Yes and a ‘No’. Cricket, even in the test match format, is a game of glorious uncertainties. In the T 20 format, those glorious uncertainties have only been heightened. Many players, during their interviews, have mentioned that the T20 game could go any way between two international sides.   Assuming that there is little difference between the teams at the international levels, small things like toss, time and venue of a match could make all the difference. I wish to give the readers a statistical analysis of the matches and their results and leave the inferences to their understanding. So hold your breath and read on.

Statistics of T 20 world Cup Matches

 The world cup matches of the Super 12 were held from 23 Oct 21 at three venues: Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Sharjah. There were 32 matches held until the semi-finals, 30 in the league, and two knock-out semi-final matches. Dubai hosted 13 matches, Abu Dhabi 11, and Sharjah hosted eight matches. The first two venues got the bulk of the matches primarily because of their newer and bigger stadiums. Sharjah is an old venue and was less preferred because of de-facto ban by BCCI for the Indian cricket team to play in Sharjah due to its notorious past of match-fixing. Sharjah is the smallest ground amongst the three venues in terms of field dimensions. With Dubai being the biggest where the boundaries are at least 5 to 7 meters longer than Sharjah. Does it make a difference? In T 20 matches it does.

Out of the 32 matches,

·      13 were played in daylight: The start time was 1400h local time.

·      19 matches were played in the nighttime under the lights. The start time was 1800h local time.

Thus, 59 % of the matches were played in the night under lights and 41% in the day in part sun part lights. Out of these, Dubai had the maximum night matches, 69%. Are the stats leading anywhere? Yes, they are: It is a well-known fact that the degree of difficulty of playing under the lights is greater than when playing in the sunlight. Also, playing in the night is fraught with a very crucial factor called the dew. The dew descends on the ground when the ambient temperature cools down. In the UAE, it is roughly around 8 pm local time. The dew does two magic tricks; first, it wets the ball, on the ground, and second, it hastens the pitch surface, normally called as the ‘wicket’. Considering the a/m time, the dew always affects the second innings in a T20 match played at night. This means the team fielding second has to handle a wet ball almost throughout the innings, debilitating them as the bowlers cannot grip the bowl effectively. On the contrary, the batting side flourishes on two counts; the pitch becomes fast, allowing the ball to come on the bat rather than grip and stop as it happens on a dry wicket and second the bowler is bowling with a wet ball which he cannot grip. In legal terms, it could be called a ‘Double Whammy’. Hence the toss becomes very critical in an evening game.

Was this the reality in the world cup in UAE? Looks like it was. The wickets in UAE are known to be dry and slow. Dubai is known to have lots of dew in the winter months at night, and I am told it is because of the sea. Dubai faces the dew factor more than any other venue for reasons only known to either the Sheikhs or the weather gods. So let’s see the statistics.

Statistical Table for matches Played in T 20 World Cup (Upto Semi-Finals)

Analysis 

The above table is culled out by the author from the data of matches given on the source page. The important analysis of the above table is the following:

• 78% time in the entire tournament, teams that have won the toss have opted to field. In Dubai, the percentage of the a/m is the highest at 92%, and in Abu Dhabi it’s the least at 64%.

• 63% of the time, the teams fielding first have won their matches. This percentage is highest in Dubai at 83% and lowest at Sharjah at 50 %.

• In Night matches, 61% of times teams who have fielded first at night have won. This percentage is highest in Dubai at 89% and lowest in Sharjah at 20%.

• 35% of matches were won when batting first. 11 games out of 32, five were at Sharjah and three each at Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Only two matches involved the super eight-team, South Africa vs England at Sharjah and Pakistan Vs Afghanistan at Dubai. In all the rest, at least one team usually the losing side was a qualifier: Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Scotland or Namibia.

The above statistical analysis helps in understanding that during this T20 world cup, winning the toss and fielding was the preferred option. Winning the toss and batting was only an option when batting against a weaker side that had qualified from the qualifying rounds, specifically Scotland and Namibia. In Dubai the teams fielding first won their matches 83% of the time, and this percentage increased to 89% when the match was played at night. Because of this, 92% of times team winning the toss chose to field first. Some factor came into play that influenced the minds of the captains who won the toss. This factor was none else than the ‘Dew’ factor. Looking at this statistics, it would seem certain to predict that if a team won a toss while playing in Dubai, it would fancy its chances of winning by electing to field first. The opponents can only resign to their fate by saying that they have been dealt a bad hand by god. Even the semi-finals between Australia and Pakistan proved this point. Despite a spirited batting and bowling performance by their team Pakistan lost the match batting first. 

Why is the same not so true in the other two venues? For Sharjah, the reason is apparent that when boundaries are short, even badly timed shots or a miss hit tends to cross the boundary, thus giving a batsman a chance to hang on and score. The second reason is that the ‘Dew’ factor is not as debilitating as in Dubai, and the dew content in the air at these two places is less.  

This is a statistical analysis based on the results. It is for the reader now to decide how one looks at a team’s performance. Pakistan won four tosses at a trot, and won all the four matches. But they lost the toss in the semi-finals in Dubai, and they lost the match. The outcome of T 20 matches can be very uncertain as luck could play a major role in your success or failure. Who is a better captain, the one who scores runs or the one who wins tosses? Very difficult to pass a judgement. One more match is still left in the tournament: The grand final in Dubai at night. Would one of the teams prove the statistics wrong? Only time will tell. All we can hope is to get a cracker of a match.