Fair measures of performance: the World Cup of cricket

Abstract

Luck can play a big part in tournament success, and progress is not necessarily the best measure of performance. A linear model is used to fit least squares ratings to margins of victory in the cricket World Cup. The Duckworth/Lewis rain interruption rules are used to project a winning second innings score and create a margin of victory in runs, equivalent to that used when the team batting first wins. Results show that, while the better teams progressed through the first round of the competition, some injustices occurred in the Super-Six round. This appears to be due to the double counting of selected matches. Ordering teams by average margin of victory gives similar results to the more complicated linear model, and its use as a tie breaker is suggested. Publication of the margin of victory as estimated by the Duckworth/Lewis method for second innings victories in all one-day matches would provide a common margin of victory suitable for analysis.

Keywords:

• sports
• cricket
• linear models
• rain interruption