Role of Big Data Analytics in the T20 World Cup

The best example of the use case of Big Data is the story of the England Men’s cricket team. During the 2015 Cricket World Cup, the England Men’s team faced multiple defeats resulting in an early exit. Peter Moors, the coach of the English team, said, “We’ll have to look at the data”, during a press conference when asked about the reason for the team’s poor performance. Four years later, after looking at and acting on the data, they lifted the World Cup by dominating the tournament and defeating every team they faced.

This is one of the best examples of how data analytics has recently impacted the way the game is played.

Big Data Analytics has been helping several sports teams. American sports, such as basketball and baseball, have used Big Data for decision-making and leveraged this technology to win several titles and trophies over the years. Though other sports such as cricket were slow off the blocks, they have caught up with American sports.

In this blog, we will talk about the role of Big Data analytics in the ICC T20 World Cup and how data is helping in better decision-making.

Data Analytics in the ICC T20 World Cup

When it comes to cricket, the birth of T20 leagues worldwide made it necessary to use data before making crucial decisions. The fast-paced nature of this format and the high monetary stake resulted in the use of data crunching as a must. As a result, several franchises embraced data analytics globally, eventually resulting in the national teams adapting this technology to enhance decision-making where the stakes are usually higher.

The ICC T20 World Cup is turning out to be an exciting and competitive event, with several national teams playing for their country to lift the coveted cup. Planning before the game is crucial in such a short format where rapid reactions and decisions must be made, and time value is paramount.

Appropriate data investigation helps build the best team for a specific match and helps decide the match-ups that will benefit the team. Moreover, Big Data analytics can also help create multiple plans to counter the opponent’s style of play during the match. It is safe to say that these days, planning is controlled by the use of data.

The analytics team works on analyzing every possible part of the play and converts them into quantifiable data. Sports experts and coaches then look at the data in detail to build clear-cut strategies.

Big Data undoubtedly plays an essential role in cricket, especially in tournaments such as the T20 World Cup, where the stakes are much higher. However, cricket, or any sport, requires skills to execute the articulated plans in the best possible way. Data analytics is a huge helping hand from outside the field of play; however, how well it works depends on how well plans are executed during the match.

Read our latest blog on "How AI Is Changing the World of Sports Forever!"

So the big question is - Can data analytics explain every outcome?

No, it cannot. Some aspects don’t work, but that is not due to the lack of robustness in the method. Like other Data Science models in different fields, there will be errors. However, that should undermine the fact that it helped cricket grow in a different direction. Quite certainly, this World Cup produced impressive results as the teams utilized data analytics, and we hope that the margin of error will be minimal as technology continues to evolve.

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