# GooglyPlusPlus2021: Towards more picturesque analytics!

Analytics for e.g. sports analytics, business analytics or analytics in e-commerce or in other domain has 2 main requirements namely a) What kind of analytics (set of parameters,function) will squeeze out the most intelligence from the data b) How to represent the analytics so that an expert can garner maximum insight?

While it may appear that the former is more important, the latter is also equally, if not, more vital to the problem. Indeed, a picture is worth a thousand words, and often times is more insightful than a large table of numbers. However, in the case of sports analytics, for e.g. in cricket a batting or bowling scorecard captures more information and can never be represented in chart.

So, my Shiny app GooglyPlusPlus includes both charts and tables for different aspects of the analysis. In this post, a newer type of chart, popular among senior management experts, namely the 4 quadrant graph is introduced, which helps in categorising batsmen and bowlers into 4 categories as shown below

a) Batting Performances – Top right quadrant (High runs, High Strike rate)

b) Bowling Performances – Bottom right quadrant( High wickets, Low Economy Rate)

A. Match Tab

All the functions below are at match level

1. Team Runs vs SR Plot
2. Team Wickets vs ER Plot
3. Team Runs vs SR Power play plot
4. Team Runs vs SR Middle overs plot
5. Team Runs vs SR Death overs plot
6. Team Wickets vs ER Power Play
7. Team Wickets vs ER Middle overs
8. Team Wickets vs ER Death overs

The below functions are based on all matches between 2 teams’

1. Team Runs vs SR Plot all Matches
2. Team Wickets vs ER Plot all Matches
3. Team Runs vs SR Power play plot all Matches
4. Team Runs vs SR Middle overs plot all Matches
5. Team Runs vs SR Death overs plot all Matches
6. Team Wickets vs ER Power Play plot all Matches
7. Team Wickets vs ER Middle overs plot all Matches
8. Team Wickets vs ER Death overs plot all Matches

C. Team Performance tab

The below functions are based on a team’s performance against all other teams

1. Team Runs vs SR Plot overall
2. Team Wickets vs ER Plot overall
3. Team Runs vs SR Power play plot overall
4. Team Runs vs SR Middle overs plot overall
5. Team Runs vs SR Death overs plot overall
6. Team Wickets vs ER Power Play overall
7. Team Wickets vs ER Middle overs overall
8. Team Wickets vs ER Death overs overall

D. T20 format Batting Analysis

This analysis is at T20 format level (IPL, Intl. T20(men), Intl. T20 (women), PSL, CPL etc.)

1. Overall Runs vs SR plot
2. Overall Runs vs SR Power play plot
3. Overall Runs vs SR Middle overs plot
4. Overall Runs vs SR Death overs plot

E. T20 Bowling Analysis

This analysis is at T20 format level (IPL, Intl. T20(men), Intl. T20 (women), PSL, CPL etc.)

1. Overall Wickets vs ER plot
2. Team Wickets vs ER Power Play
3. Team Wickets vs ER Middle overs
4. Team Wickets vs ER Death overs

These 32 functions have been added to my yorkr package and so all these functions become plug-n-play in my Shiny app GooglyPlusPlus2021 which means that the 32 functions apply across all the nine T20 formats that the app supports i.e. IPL, Intl. T20 (men), Intl. T20 (women), BBL, NTB, PSL, CPL, SSM, WBB.

Hence the multiplicative factor of the new addition is 32 x 9 = 288 additional ways of exploring match, team and player data

The data for GooglyPlusPlus is taken from Cricsheet. My shiny app GooglyPlusPlus2021 is based on my R package yorkr.

You can clone/fork GooglyPlusPlus from Github at gpp2021-10

Check out my app GooglyPlusPlus2021 and analyze batsmen, bowlers, teams, overall performance. The data for all the nine T20 formats have been updated to include the latest data.

Hence, the app is just in time for the IPL mega auction. You should be able to analyse players in IPL, Intl. T20 or in any of the other formats from where they could be drawn and check out their relative standings

I am including some random plots to demonstrate the newly minted functions

Note 1: All plots are interactive. The controls are on the top right. You can hover over data, zoom-in, zoom-out, compare data etc by choosing the appropriate control. To know more about how to use the interactive charts see GooglyPlusPlus2021 is now fully interactive!!!

You can also check my short video on how to navigate interactive charts

Note 2: To know about Powerplay, Middle overs and Death over analysis see my post GooglyPlusPlus2021 now with power play, middle and death over analysis

Note 3: All tabs(except Match tab) now include Date range pickers to focus on the period of interest. See my post GooglyPlusPlus2021 enhanced with drill-down batsman, bowler analytics

I) Match tab

New Zealand vs Australia (2021-11-14)

New Zealand batting, except K Williamson, the rest did not fire as much

For Australia, Warner, Maxwell and Marsh played good knocks to wrest control

a) Wickets vs ER during Power play of Mumbai Indians in all matches against Chennai Super Kings (IPL)

b) Karachi Kings Runs vs SR during middle overs against Multan Sultans (PSL)

c) Wickets vs ER during death overs of Barbados Tridents in all matches against Jamaica Tallawahs (CPL)

III) Teams overall batting performance

India’s best T20 performers in Power play since 2018 (Intl. T20)

e) Australia’s best performers in Death overs since Mar 2017 (Intl. T20)

f) India’s Intl. T20 (women) best Runs vs SR since 2018

g) England’s Intl. T20 (women) best bowlers in Death overs

IV) Overall Batting Performance across T20

This tab gives the batsmen’s rank and overall batting performance across the T20 format.

a) Why was Hardik Pandya chosen, and why this was in error?

Of course, it provides an insight into why Hardik Pandya was chosen in India’s World cup team despite poor performances recently. Here are the best Intl. T20 death over batsmen

Of course, we can zoom in to get a better look

This is further substantiated when we performances in IPL

However, if you move the needle forward a year at a time, you see Hardik Pandya’s performance drops significantly

and further down

Rather, Dinesh Karthik, Sanju Samson or Ruturaj Gaikwad would have been better options

b) Best batsmen Intl. T20 (women) in Power play since 2018

V) Overall bowling performance

This tab gives the bowler’s rank and overall bowling performance in Power play, middle and death overs across all T20 formats

a) Intl. T20 (men) best bowlers in Power Play from 2019 (zoomed in)

b) Intl. T20(men) best bowlers in Death overs since 2019

c) Was B. Kumar a good choice for India team in World cup?

Bhuvi was one of India’s best bowler in Power play only if we go back to the beginning of time

i) From 2008

But if we move forward to 2020 onwards we see Arshdeep Singh or D Chahar would have been a better choice

ii) From 2020 onwards

iii) 2021 onwards

Hence D Chahar & Arshdeep Singh are the natural choice moving forwards for India

iv) T20 Best batsman

If we look at Intl. T20 performances since 2017, Babar Azam leads the pack, however his Strike rate needs to move up.

v) T20 best bowlers

As mentioned above go ahead and give GooglyPlusPlus2021 a spin!!!

You can download/fork the code for the Shiny app from Github at gpp2021-10

Also see

To see all posts click Index of posts

# GooglyPlusPlus2021 now with power play, middle and death over analysis

This latest edition of GooglyPlusPlus2021 now includes detailed analysis of teams, batsmen and bowlers in power play, middle and death overs. The T20 format is based on 3 phases as each side faces 20 overs.

Power play: Overs: 0 – 6 – No more than 2 players can be outside the 30 yard circle

Middle overs: Overs: 7- 16 – During these overs the batting side tries to consolidate their innings

Death overs: Overs: 16 -20 – During these 5 overs the batting side tries to accelerate the scoring rate, while the bowling side will try to restrict the batsmen against going for big hits

This is shown below

This latest update of GooglyPlusPlus2021 includes the following functions

a) Match tab

1. teamRunsAcrossOvers
2. teamSRAcrossOvers
3. teamWicketsAcrossOvers
4. teamERAcrossOvers
5. matchWormWickets

1. teamRunsAcrossOversOppnAllMatches
2. teamSRAcrossOversOppnAllMatches
3. teamWicketsAcrossOversOppnAllMatches
4. teamERAcrossOversOppnAllMatches
5. topRunsBatsmenAcrossOversOppnAllMatches
6. topSRBatsmenAcrossOversOppnAllMatches
7. topWicketsBowlersAcrossOversOppnAllMatches
8. topERBowlerAcrossOverOppnAllMatches

c) Overall performance tab

1. teamRunsAcrossOversAllOppnAllMatches
2. teamSRAcrossOversAllOppnAllMatches
3. teamWicketsAcrossOversAllOppnAllMatches
4. teamERAcrossOversAllOppnAllMatches
5. topRunsBatsmenAcrossOversAllOppnAllMatches
6. topSRBatsmenAcrossOversAllOppnAllMatches
7. topWicketsBowlersAcrossOversAllOppnAllMatches
8. topERBowlerAcrossOverAllOppnAllMatches

Hence a total of 8 + 8 + 5 = 21 functions have been added. These functions can be utilized across all the 9 T20 formats that are supported in GooglyPlusPlus2021 namely

i) IPL ii) Intl. T20 (men) iii) Intl. T20 (women) iv) BBL v) NTB vi) PSL vii) CPL viii) SSM ix) WBB

Hence there are a total of 21 x 9 = 189 new possibilities to explore in GooglyPlusPlus2021

GooglyPlusPlus2021 is based on my R package yorkr and is based on data from Cricsheet. To know how to use GooglyPlusPlus see any of earlier posts GooglyPlusPlus2021 is now fully interactive!!!, GooglyPlusPlus2021 adds new bells and whistles!!, GooglyPlusPlus2021 enhanced with drill-down batsman, bowler analytics

Take GooglyPlusPlus for a spin here GooglyPlusPlus2021-9

You can clone/fork the code for the Shiny app from Github – gpp2021-9

Included below is a random selection of options from the 189 possibilities mentioned above. Feel free to try out for yourself

A) IPL – CSK vs KKR 2018-04-10

a) Team Runs in power play, middle and death overs

b) Team Strike rate in power play, middle and death overs

B) Intl. T20 (men) – India vs Afghanistan (2021-11-03)

a) Team wickets in power play, middle and death overs

b) Team Economy rate in power play, middle and death overs

a) Team Runs in all matches in power play, middle and death overs

a) Team vs team Strike rate : Karachi Kings vs Lahore Qalanders since 2019 in power play, middle and death overs

E) Team overall performance in all matches against all opposition

a) BBL : Brisbane Heats : Team Wickets between 2015 – 2018 in power play, middle and death overs

F) Top Runs and Strike rate Batsman of Mumbai Indians vs Royal Challengers Bangalore since 2018

a) Top runs scorers for Mumbai Indians (MI) in power play, middle and death overs

b) Top strike rate for RCB in power play, middle and death overs

F) Intl. T20 (women) India vs England since 2018

a) Top wicket takers for England in power play, middle and death overs since 2018

b) Top wicket takers for India in power play, middle and death overs since 2018

G) Intl. T20 (men) All time best batsmen and bowlers for India

a) Most runs in power play, middle and death overs

b) Highest strike rate in power play, middle and death overs

H) Match worm wicket chart

Note: You can zoom to the area where you would like to focus more

The option of looking at the Match worm chart (without wickets) also exists.

Go ahead take GooglyPlusPlus2021 for a test drive and check out how your favourite players perform in power play, middle and death overs. Click GooglyPlusPlus2021-9

Hope you have fun with GooglyPlusPlus

You may also like

To see all posts click Index of posts

# GooglyPlusPlus2021:ICC WC T20:Pavilion-view analytics as-it-happens!

This year 2021, we are witnessing a rare spectacle in the cricketing universe, where IPL playoffs are immediately followed by ICC World Cup T20. Cricket pundits have claimed such a phenomenon occurs once in 127 years! Jokes apart, the World cup T20 is underway and as usual GooglyPlusPlus is ready for the action.

GooglyPlusPlus will provide near-real time analytics, by automatically downloading the latest match data daily, processing and organising the match data into appropriate folders so that my R package yorkr can slice and dice the data to provide the pavilion-view analytics.

The charts capture all the breathless, heart-pounding, and nail-biting action in great details in the many tables and plots. Every table and chart tell a story. You just have to ‘read between the lines!’

GooglyPlusPlus2021 will update itself automatically every day, so the data will be current and you can analyse all matches upto the previous day, along with the historical performances of the teams. So make sure you check it everyday.

Note:

1. All charts are interactive. To know how to use the interactive charts see my post GooglyPlusPlus2021 is now fully interactive!!!
2. The are 5 tabs for each of the formats supported by GooglyPlusPlus2021 which now supports IPL, Intl. T20(men), Intl. T20(women), BBL, NTB, PSL, CPL, SSM, WBB. Besides, it also supports ODI (men) and ODI (women)
3. Each of the formats have 5 tabs – Batsman, Bowler, Match, Head-to-head and Overall Performace.
4. All T20 formats also include a ranking functionality for the batsmen and bowlers
5. You can now perform drill-down analytics for batsmen, bowlers, head-to-head and overall performance based on date-range selector functionality. The ranking tabs also include date range selector granular analysis. For more details see GooglyPlusPlus2021 enhanced with drill-down batsman, bowler analytics

Try out GooglyPlusPlus2021 here gpp2021-8!!

You can clone fork the code from Github gpp2021-8

I am including some random screenshots of things that can be done with GooglyPlusPlus2021

A. Papua New Guinea vs Oman (2021-10-17)

a. Batting partnership

B. Match worm chart (New Papua Guinea v Oman)

This was a no contest as Oman cruised to victory

b. March worm chart (Scotland vs Bangladesh)

Fortunes see-sawed one way, then another, as can be seen in the match worm chart

C. Netherlands vs Ireland (2021-10-18)

a. Batman vs Bowler

a. Sri Lanka vs West Indies (2019-2021) – Batting partnerships

b. India vs England (2018 – 2021) – Bowling scorecard

c) Australia vs South Africa – Team wicket opposition

E) Overall performance

a. Pakistan batting scorecard since 2019

a. Win loss of Australia since 2019

F) Batsman Performance

a. PR Stirling’s runs against opposition since 2019

b. KJ Brien’s cumulative average runs since 2019

G. Bowler performance

a. PWH De Silva’s wicket prediction since 2019

b. T Shamsi’s cumulative average wickets since 2019

H. Ranking Intl. T20 batsman since 2019

a. Runs over Strike rate

b. Strike rate over runs

I. Ranking bowlers since 2019

a. Wickets over Economy rate

b. Economy rate over wickets

As mentioned above GooglyPlusPlus2021 will be updated daily automatically, so you won’t miss any analytic action.

Do give GooglyPlusPlus2021 a spin!

Clone/fork the code for the Shiny app from Github gpp2021-8

You may also like

To see all post click Index of posts

# GooglyPlusPlus2021 adds new bells and whistles!!

This latest update of GooglyPlusPlus2021 includes new controls which allow for granular analysis of teams and matches. This version includes a new ‘Date Range’ widget which will allow you to choose a specific interval between which you would like to analyze data. The Date Range widget has been added to 2 tabs namely

b) Overall Performance

Important note:

This change is applicable to all T20 formats and ODI formats that GooglyPlusPlus2021 handles. This means you can do fine-grained analysis of the following formats

a. IPL b. Intl. T20 (men) c. Intl. T20 (women)

d. BBL e. NTB f. PSL

g. WBB h. CPL i. SSM

j. ODI (men) k. ODI (women)

Important note 1: Also note that all charts in GooglyPlusPlus2021 are interactive. You ca hover over the charts to get details of the data below. You can also selectively filter in bar charts using double-click and click. To know more about how to use GooglyPlusPlus2021 interactively, please see my post GooglyPlusPlus2021 is now fully interactive!!

Try out GooglyPlusPlus2021 here GooglyPlusPlus2021

a) Team Batting Scorecard – MI vs CSK (all matches 2008-2013) – Tendulkar era

Tendulkar is the top scorer, followed by Rohit Sharma and Jayasuriya for Mumbai Indians

b) Team Batting Partnerships (MI -CSK) – Tendulkar’s partnerships

Partnerships for Tendulkar with his MI team mates

c) Team Bowler Wicket Kinds (Opposition countries vs India in all matches in T20)

d) Win vs Loss India vs Australia T20 Women (2010 – 2015)

Australia won all 3 matches against India

e) Win vs Loss India vs Australia T20 Women (2015 – 2020)

Between 2016-2020 the tally is 3-2 for Australia vs India

f) Wins vs Losses – MI vs all other teams 2013 – 2018

Partnerships of Australia women EA Perry and AJ Blackwell for Australia

Go ahead give GooglyPlusPlus2021 a try!

Hope you have fun!

Also see

To see all posts see Index of posts

# GooglyPlusPlus2021 is now fully interactive!!!

GooglyPlusPlus2021 is now fully interactive. Please read the below post carefully to see the different ways you can interact with the data in the plots.

a) GooglyPlusPlus gets all ‘touchy, feely‘ with the data and now you can interact with the plot/chart to get more details of the underlying data. There are many ways you can slice’n dice the data in the charts. The examples below illustrate a few of this. You can interact with plots by hover’ing, ‘click’ing and ‘double-click’ing curves, plots, barplots to get details of the data.

b) GooglyPlusPlus also includes the ‘Super Smash T20’ league from New Zealand. You can analyze batsmen, bowlers, matches, teams and rank Super Smash (SSM) also

Note: GooglyPlusPlus2021 can handle a total of 11 formats including T20 and ODI. They are

i) IPL ii) Intl. T20(men) ii) Intl. T20(women) iv) BBL

v) NTB vi) PSL vii) WBB. viii) CPL

ix) SSM x) ODI (men) xi) ODI (women)

Each of these formats have 7 tabs which are

— Analyze batsman

— Analyze bowlers

— Analyze match

— Team vs all other teams

— Rank batsmen

— Rank bowlers

Within these 11 x 7 = 77 tabs you can analyze batsmen, bowlers, matches, head-to-head, team vs all other teams and rank players for T20 and ODI. In addition all plots have been made interactive so there is a lot more information that you can get from these charts

Try out the interactive GooglyPlusPlus2021 now!!!

You can fork/clone the Shiny app from Github at GooglyPlusPlus2021

Below I have randomly included some charts for different formats to show how you can interact with them

a) Batsman Analysis – Runs vs Deliveries (IPL)

Mouse-over/Hover

The plot below gives the number of runs scored by David Warner vs Deliveries faced.

b) Batsman Analysis – Runs vs Deliveries (IPL) (prediction)

Since a 2nd order regression line,with confidence intervals(shaded area), has been fitted in the above plot, we can predict the runs given the ‘balls faced’ as below

Click ‘Toggle Spike lines’ (use palette on top-right)

By using hover(mouse-over) on the curve we can determine the predicted number of runs Warner will score given a certain number of deliveries

c) Bowler Analysis – Wickets against opposition – Intl. T20 (women)

Jhulan Goswami’s wickets against opposition countries in Intl. T20 (women)

d) Bowler Analysis (Predict bowler wickets) IPL – (non-interactive**)

Note: Some plots are non-interactive, like the one below which predicts the number of wickets Bumrah will take based on number of deliveries bowled

e) Match Analysis – Batsmen Partnership -Intl. T20 (men)

India vs England batting partnership between Virat Kohli & Shikhar Dhawan in all matches between England and India

f) Match Analysis – Worm chart (Super Smash T20) SSM

i) Worm chart of Auckland vs Northern Districts (29 Jan 2021).

ii) The final cross-over happens around the 2nd delivery of the 19th over (18.2) as Northern Districts over-takes Auckland to win the match.

Batting performance of Shakib-al-Hasan (Bangladesh) against Afghanistan bowlers in Intl. T20 (men)

Double click on Shakib-al-Hasan on the legend to get the performance of Shakib-al-Hasan against Afghanistan bowlers

Avoiding the clutter

i) Head-to-head – Team bowler vs batsmen (Chennai Super Kings bowlers vs Mumbai Indians batsmen) – IPL

If you choose the above option the resulting plot is very crowded as shown below

To get the performance of Mumbai Indian (MI) batsmen (Rohit Sharma & Kieron Pollard) against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) bowlers in all matches do as told below

Steps to avoid clutter in stacked bar plots

1) This can be avoided by selectively choosing to filter out the batsmen we are interested in. say RG Sharma and Kieron Pollard. Then double-ciick RG Sharma, this is will bring up the chart with only RG Sharma as below

2) Now add additional batsmen you are interested in by single-clicking. In the example below Kieron Pollard is added

You can continue to add additional players that you are interested by single clicking.

In the plot V Kohli, MS Dhoni and SC Ganguly have been selected for their performance against Australian bowlers (use toggle spike lines)

k) Overall Performance – PSL batting partnership against all teams (Fakhar Zaman)

The plot below shows Fakhar Zaman (Lahore Qalanders) partnerships with other teammates in all matches in PSL.

l) Win-loss against all teams (CPL)

Win-loss chart of Jamaica Talawallahs (CPL) in all matches against all opposition

m) Team batting partnerships against all teams for India (ODI Women)

Batting partnerships of Indian ODI women against all other teams

n) Ranking of batsmen (IPL 2021)

Finally here is the latest ranking of IPL batsmen for IPL 2021 (can be done for all other T20 formats)

o) Ranking of bowlers (IPL 2021)

So what are you waiting for? Go ahead and try out GooglyPlusPlus2021!

Knock yourself out!

Enjoy enjaami!!!

To see all posts click Index of posts

# GooglyPlusPlus2021 bubbles up top T20 players in all formats!

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.”
“I don’t much care where –”
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

– brand new strategy and algorithm for ranking T20 players in any format (IPL, BBL, NTB, PSL etc.)

– integrates the Caribbean Premier League T20 into the app

– includes the latest BBL matches in 2020-2021

– includes all the latest Natwest T20 matches 2020

– has a new and better user interface

Interestingly the new Ranking algorithm has come just before the IPL auction. Check out who’s who in IPL T20 by taking GooglyPlusPlus2021 for ride!!!

Try out GooglyPlusPlus2021!!

You can clone/fork the code from Github at GooglyPlusPlus2021

### 1) Ranking Algorithm

In my last post GooglyPlusPlus2021 interactively ranks T20 batsmen and bowlers!!!  I had shown how by changing the number of matches played we see that KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant move above Virat Kohli. That set me thinking. So, I redesigned the ranking so that we start to identify newer players earlier.  This is how the new ranking works.

a) Ranking T20 batsmen :

I have the following controls

a) Since year : This tells the year range  to consider for the  batsmen. This slider moves from right to left

b) Matches played : Number of matches played by the batsman in the year range. This moves left to right

c) Mode : The ranking algorithm sorts on and ranks on 2 columns namely Runs and Strike rate. The mode tells whether to consider Runs over Strike rate of Strike rate over runs.

By default, the control for “Since year” will be set to the ‘beginning of time’ which for IPL data is 2008. If you move the ‘Since year’ since year slider to the left, the ‘Matches played’ slider will move to the right and the corresponding maximum value of matches played will be set appropriately.

b) Ranking T20 Bowlers:

This has the following controls

a) Since year : This tells the year range to consider for  bowler in IPL. Moves right to left.

b) Matches played : Number of matches played by the bowler in the year range. Move left to right.

c) Mode 1: The bowlers are sorted and ranked on 2 columns namely Wickets and Economy rate. The mode tells whether to consider Wickets over Economy rate or Economy rate over wickets when ranking the bowlers.

By default, the “Since year” will be set to the year when the T20 data is available. If you move the ‘Since year’ since year slider to the left, the ‘Matches played’ slider will move to the right and the corresponding maximum value of matches played will be set appropriately.

### 2) Strategy for ranking:

Here is the rationale and philosophy behind these controls

The ranking in my earlier post GooglyPlusPlus2021 interactively ranks T20 batsmen and bowlers!!!  is based on sorting batsmen and bowlers from the start of IPL tournament. Hence we will find players who have played a lot of matches. So in the bowler ranking you will SL Malinga who no longer plays IPL.

Hence I decided that the user should be allowed to choose the start year to consider for the ranking. We can move the “Since year’ slider from right to left to choose the data for the year range we are interested in e.g. (2014-2020, or 2017-2020). Changing the ‘Since year’ slider will obviously change the maximum matches played by any player. However the user can move this slider right to left and decide the number of matches to be considered for a batsman or bowler.  Finally, the ‘Mode’. will allow the user to choose whether the list if batsmen should be ranked first by average runs and then average strike rate or vice versa. In the case of bowlers, the choice is whether to first sort by number of wickets and then economy rate or vice versa.

The consideration for ‘Mode’ and “Mode1′ is that while runs and wickets are important for batsman or bowler, it is clear the Strike rate and Economy rate become critical in ‘death overs‘. Batsmen who can accelerate the scoring rate when needed and bowlers who can put the brakes on during death overs is of paramount importance in T20 cricket.

Let me walk through a  few scenarios in IPL T20. The same functionality is also available in alll other T20 formats (Intl. T20 (men, women), BBL, NTB, PSL, WBB, CPL etc.)

### 3) Ranking IPL batsmen

Note: Those players who are underlined in red are the shooting stars**

a) Scenario 1

These are  the consistent and reliable players

Since year = 2013, Matches played = 95 and Mode = ‘Runs over Strike Rate’

b) Scenario 2

Since year = 2015, Matches played = 67 and Mode = ‘Runs over Strike Rate’

c) Scenario 3

We can turn the above over its head and choose Mode = “Strike rate over Runs’

Since year = 2015, Matches played = 67 and Mode = ‘Strike Rate over Runs’

d) Scenario 4:

Since year = 2018, Matches played = 35 and Mode = ‘Runs over Strike Rate’

### 4) Ranking IPL bowlers

e) Scenario 5:

Since year = 2016, Matches played = 55 and Mode1 = ‘ Wickets over Economy Rate’

f) Scenario 6

Since year = 2018, Matches played = 33 and Mode1 = ‘ Economy Rate over wickets’. Note the economy rate is sorted in ascending order

Note:  Incidentally the ranking of IPL and other T20 players in my earlier posts is a special case, when you consider all matches from the beginning of time (or since the data is available, rather than choosing a range from later years).

Note 1: Personally, if I had to form a team, I would choose

– at least 2-3 batsmen who are reliable and have good average runs and a good strike rate

– 2 batsmen who can be used to accelerate strike rate during critical junctures or at death overs

– 2-3 bowlers who have a great record of wicket taking with good economy rate (2 + 1 pace/spin)

– 2 bowlers who have good economy rate over wickets

– 2 all rounders with good batting and bowling average

– 1 wicketkeeper batsmen

The key point is how many matches would you consider as a minimum for reliability or strike rate. More is good but not always better as you could miss out on rising stars* who may be risky but good picks and possibly cost less, since the team composition will also depend on the available budget for each team. You could also check other T20 formats for good T20 players. Creating a T20 team in IPL is an optimization problem where the objective is to maximize the runs, strike rate for batsmen,  or maximizing the wickets taken, while minimizing the economy rate for bowlers with the constraint of the overall budget of the team.

Note 2: The ranking algorithm has been included for all T20 formats in GooglyPlusPlus2020. See below

5) International T20 Batsmen (men) ranking

Since year = 2012, Matches played = 50 and Mode = ‘Runs over Strike Rate’

6) International T20 Bowlers (men) ranking

Since year = 2013, Matches played = 33 and Mode1 = ‘Wickets over Economy Rate ‘

Here are some top class T20 bowlers

7) International T20 Batsmen (women) ranking

Since year = 2015, Matches played = 29 and Mode = ‘Runs over Strike Rate’. Smriti Mandhana makes it to the top 3 in Runs over Strike Rate!

and 2nd when Strike rate over runs is considered!

### 8) Integrating Carribean Premier League T20

In this version I have also integrated Carribean Premier League (CPL). It took me about 3 -4  hours of focused work to setup the data and the associated code. Like every other T20 format,  CPL league has access to 100+ functions of yorkr. So you can do analysis of CPL batsmen, bowlers, CPL matches, CPL head-to-head confrontation and CPL team against all other teams besides the ranking function. You can also generate batting and bowling scorecard for matches, for a team against all other teams and the overall scorecard in all matches against all other teams. Here is a random sample

a) C Munro – Cumulative Average Runs

b) RR Emrit – Bowler’s wickets against opposition

d) Rank CPL batsmen

Since year= 2016, Matches played = 41 Mode = Strike rate over Runs

Nicholas Pooran tops the list

### 9) BBL 2020-21

GooglyPlusPlus2021 now has the latest Big Bash League matches of 2020-21, in fact “hot off the pitch“. So you should be able to do all the analysis on current BBL data namely batsmen and bowler analysis, match analysis, team analysis vs another team or against all other teams, and finally ranking of batsmen and bowlers. Here is a sample with yesterday’s match

a) Match scorecard -Perth Scorchers- Sydney Sixers 06 Feb 2021 (Final)

b) Predict runs of batsman – CA Lynn

### 10) Natwest T20 Blast 2020

I noticed recently the Cricsheet  has more data. Now NTB data includes all matches till 2020. This data has been incorporated into NTB and you should be able to use all the yorkr functions to analyze batsmen, bowlers, teams, team-vs-team and team vs all other teams, besides the ranking functions. Here are a couple below

b) Team Batsmen vs Bowlers – All matches all opposition Leicestershire (MJ Cosgrove)

Do check out the various functions of GooglyPlusPlus2021. Take a look at the ranks of the T20 batsmen and bowlers. Hope you have a good time!

Take GooglyPlusPlus2021 for a test ride!!

Feel free to clone/fork the code from Github at GooglyPlusPlus2021

Also see

To see all post click Index of posts

# GooglyPlusPlus2021 interactively ranks T20 batsmen and bowlers!!!

Every time I think that I have my R packages or Shiny apps all wrapped up, I find another idea trots up and knocks at my door. Since I intend to keep GooglyPlusPlus current with the latest data, I decided to include the ranking functions in my Shiny app GooglyPlusPlus.

Fortunately, since GooglyPlusPlus is based on my R package ‘yorkr‘ (see Introducing cricket package yorkr: Beaten by sheer pace!), I could make the necessary changes to the ranking functions in the package, so that it could be incorporated into my latest Shiny app GooglyPlusPlus2021!! To know how to use GooglyPlusPlus see my post Introducing GooglyPlusPlus

Note: GooglyPlusPlus can analyze batsmen, bowlers, matches and teams.

Take GooglyPlusPlus2021 for a test drive!!!

You can clone/fork GooglyPlusPlus2021 from Github

Here are a few scenarios from GooglyPlusPlus2021

### A) Ranking batsmen

Ranking IPL batsmen (minMatches = 80) – The following table shows the ranking of IPL players who have played 80 matches or more

### B) Identifying batsmen of potential and promise

Ranking IPL batsmen (minMatches =70) –  If we reduce the minimum number of matches played to 70, then we see it pushes up KL Rahul above Kohli.

Ranking IPL batsmen (minMatches =60) – When the slider is moved to 60, we see that Rishabh Pant has a better mean average and mean strike rate and is also ranked above Kohli. We can identify promising players this way. However, it is also likely that some players may be just a bright flash in the pan

### D) Ranking NTB Batsmen

GooglyPlusPlus2021 can rank all T20 formats (IPL, BBL, Intl. T20 (men), Intl. T20 (women), NTB, PSL and WBB. Do give it a try!

Also remember that GooglyPlusPlus2021 includes close to 100+ functions which enable it to perform analysis of batsmen, bowlers, T20 matches, head-to-head confrontation of T20 teams and overall performance of T20 teams . To know more about GooglyPlusPlus2021 see Introducing GooglyPlusPlus

You can download the code for this app from Github at GooglyPlusPlus2021

Do give GooglyPlusPlus2021 a spin!!

I do have some other ideas also which I will be incorporating  into GooglyPlusPlus2021.

Watch this space!!

To see all posts click Index of posts

# GooglyPlusPlus 2020!!

I have updated my GooglyPlusPlus Shiny app with data from latest IPL 2020. GooglyPlusPlus  2020 is also based on my R package yorkr.  To know more about yorkr (see Revitalizing R package yorkr.) Now you should be able to analyze IPL matches, teams, players upto IPL 2020. Note: My latest GooglyPlusPlus 2020 can analyze all formats of T20 matches. yorkr uses data from Cricsheet

There are 5 tabs in each of the T20 formats

i) Analyze T20 batsmen ii) Analyze T20 bowlers. iii) Analyze T20 match iv) Analyze T20 team

vs another T20 team v) Analyze overall performance of T20 against all other teams

I plan to update GooglyPlusPlus  at least twice a year  to keep it abreast of all the latest data of all T20 formats

In GooglyPlusPlus 2020 you can check out IPL data upto 2020, besides other T20 formats like BBL, PSL, NTB, WBBL, Intl. T20 etc.

Try out GooglyPlusPlus 2020 Shiny app!!

You can clone/fork the code from Github GooglyPlusPlus2020

Important note: My earlier app GooglyPlusPlus handled all T20 formats including ODI (men and women). Due to an issue with Shiny, I could not include ODI matches in GooglyPlusPlus 2020

Here are some snapshots from GooglyPlusPlus 2020

### E. Match scorecard – CSK vs DC 2020-10-17

The scorecards batting and bowling are computed on the fly for all T20 matches

### H. Overall team performance- Team Bowler Wicket kind: Rajasthan Royals

Clone/fork the code from Github GooglyPlusPlus2020

Do take GooglyPlusPlus 2020 for a drive! While I have highlighted only IPL T20, because I have updated with the latest data, GooglyPlusPlus 2020 can also handle other T20 formats like BBL, Natwest, PSL, Intl. T20 (men &women) and WBB

Hope you have fun!

Also see

To see all posts click Index of posts

# Benford’s law meets IPL, Intl. T20 and ODI cricket

“To grasp how different a million is from a billion, think about it like this: A million seconds is a little under two weeks; a billion seconds is about thirty-two years.”

“One of the pleasures of looking at the world through mathematical eyes is that you can see certain patterns that would otherwise be hidden.”

``               Steven Strogatz, Prof at Cornell University``

## Introduction

Within the last two weeks, I was introduced to Benford’s Law by 2 of my friends. Initially, I looked it up and Google and was quite intrigued by the law. Subsequently another friends asked me to check the ‘Digits’ episode, from the “Connected” series on Netflix by Latif Nasser, which I strongly recommend you watch.

Benford’s Law also called the Newcomb–Benford law, the law of anomalous numbers, or the First Digit Law states that, when dealing with quantities obtained from Nature, the frequency of appearance of each digit in the first significant place is logarithmic. For example, in sets that obey the law, the number 1 appears as the leading significant digit about 30.1% of the time, the number 2 about 17.6%, number 3 about 12.5% all the way to the number 9 at 4.6%. This interesting logarithmic pattern is observed in most natural datasets from population densities, river lengths, heights of skyscrapers, tax returns etc. What is really curious about this law, is that when we measure the lengths of rivers, the law holds perfectly regardless of the units used to measure. So the length of the rivers would obey the law whether we measure in meters, feet, miles etc. There is something almost mystical about this law.

The law has also been used widely to detect financial fraud, manipulations in tax statements, bots in twitter, fake accounts in social networks, image manipulation etc. In this age of deep fakes, the ability to detect fake images will assume paramount importance. While deviations from Benford Law do not always signify fraud, to large extent they point to an aberration. Prof Nigrini, of Cape Town used this law to identify financial discrepancies in Enron’s financial statement resulting in the infamous scandal. Also the 2009 Iranian election was found to be fradulent as the first digit percentages did not conform to those specified by Benford’s Law.

While it cannot be said with absolute certainty, marked deviations from Benford’s law could possibly indicate that there has been manipulation of natural processes. Possibly Benford’s law could be used to detect large scale match-fixing in cricket tournaments. However, we cannot look at this in isolation and the other statistical and forensic methods may be required to determine if there is fraud. Here is an interesting paper Promises and perils of Benford’s law

A set of numbers is said to satisfy Benford’s law if the leading digit d (d ∈ {1, …, 9}) occurs with probability

$P(d)=log_{10}(1+1/d)$

This law also works for number in other bases, in base b >=2

$P(d)=log_{b}(1+1/d)$

Interestingly, this law also applies to sports on the number of point scored in basketball etc. I was curious to see if this applied to cricket. Previously, using my R package yorkr, I had already converted all T20 data and ODI data from Cricsheet which is available at yorkrData2020, I wanted to check if Benford’s Law worked on the runs scored, or deliveries faced by batsmen at team level or at a tournament level (IPL, Intl. T20 or ODI).

Thankfully, R has a package benford.analysis to check for data behaviour in accordance to Benford’s Law, and I have used this package in my post

This post is also available in RPubs as Benford’s Law meets IPL, Intl. T20 and ODI

``````library(data.table)
library(reshape2)``````
``library(dplyr)``
``````library(benford.analysis)
library(yorkr)``````

In this post, I have randomly check data with Benford’s law. The fully converted dataset is available in yorkrData2020 which I have included above. You can try on any dataset including ODI (men,women),Intl T20(men,women),IPL,BBL,PSL,NTB and WBB.

## 1. Check the runs distribution by Royal Challengers Bangalore

We can see the behaviour is as expected with Benford’s law, with minor deviations

``````load("/Users/tvganesh/backup/software/cricket-package/yorkr-cricsheet/yorkrData2020/ipl/iplBattingBowlingDetails/Royal Challengers Bangalore-BattingDetails.RData")
rcbRunsTrends = benford(battingDetails\$runs, number.of.digits = 1, discrete = T, sign = "positive")
rcbRunsTrends``````
``````##
## Benford object:
##
## Data: battingDetails\$runs
## Number of observations used = 1205
## Number of obs. for second order = 99
## First digits analysed = 1
##
## Mantissa:
##
##    Statistic  Value
##         Mean  0.458
##          Var  0.091
##  Ex.Kurtosis -1.213
##     Skewness -0.025
##
##
## The 5 largest deviations:
##
##   digits absolute.diff
## 1      1         14.26
## 2      7         13.88
## 3      9          8.14
## 4      6          5.33
## 5      4          4.78
##
## Stats:
##
##  Pearson's Chi-squared test
##
## data:  battingDetails\$runs
## X-squared = 5.2091, df = 8, p-value = 0.735
##
##
##  Mantissa Arc Test
##
## data:  battingDetails\$runs
## L2 = 0.0022852, df = 2, p-value = 0.06369
##
## Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD): 0.004941381
## MAD Conformity - Nigrini (2012): Close conformity
## Distortion Factor: -18.8725
##
## Remember: Real data will never conform perfectly to Benford's Law. You should not focus on p-values!``````

## 2. Check the ‘balls played’ distribution by Royal Challengers Bangalore

``````load("/Users/tvganesh/backup/software/cricket-package/yorkr-cricsheet/yorkrData2020/ipl/iplBattingBowlingDetails/Royal Challengers Bangalore-BattingDetails.RData")
rcbBallsPlayedTrends = benford(battingDetails\$ballsPlayed, number.of.digits = 1, discrete = T, sign = "positive")
plot(rcbBallsPlayedTrends)``````

## 3. Check the runs distribution by Chennai Super Kings

The trend seems to deviate from the expected behavior to some extent in the number of digits for 5 & 7.

``````load("/Users/tvganesh/backup/software/cricket-package/yorkr-cricsheet/yorkrData2020/ipl/iplBattingBowlingDetails/Chennai Super Kings-BattingDetails.RData")
cskRunsTrends = benford(battingDetails\$runs, number.of.digits = 1, discrete = T, sign = "positive")
cskRunsTrends``````
``````##
## Benford object:
##
## Data: battingDetails\$runs
## Number of observations used = 1054
## Number of obs. for second order = 94
## First digits analysed = 1
##
## Mantissa:
##
##    Statistic  Value
##         Mean  0.466
##          Var  0.081
##  Ex.Kurtosis -1.100
##     Skewness -0.054
##
##
## The 5 largest deviations:
##
##   digits absolute.diff
## 1      5         27.54
## 2      2         18.40
## 3      1         17.29
## 4      9         14.23
## 5      7         14.12
##
## Stats:
##
##  Pearson's Chi-squared test
##
## data:  battingDetails\$runs
## X-squared = 22.862, df = 8, p-value = 0.003545
##
##
##  Mantissa Arc Test
##
## data:  battingDetails\$runs
## L2 = 0.002376, df = 2, p-value = 0.08173
##
## Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD): 0.01309597
## MAD Conformity - Nigrini (2012): Marginally acceptable conformity
## Distortion Factor: -17.90664
##
## Remember: Real data will never conform perfectly to Benford's Law. You should not focus on p-values!``````

## 4. Check runs distribution in all of Indian Premier League (IPL)

``````battingDF <- NULL
teams <-c("Chennai Super Kings","Deccan Chargers","Delhi Daredevils",
"Kings XI Punjab", 'Kochi Tuskers Kerala',"Kolkata Knight Riders",
"Mumbai Indians", "Pune Warriors","Rajasthan Royals",
"Rising Pune Supergiants")

setwd("/Users/tvganesh/backup/software/cricket-package/yorkr-cricsheet/yorkrData2020/ipl/iplBattingBowlingDetails")
for(team in teams){
battingDetails <- NULL
val <- paste(team,"-BattingDetails.RData",sep="")
print(val)
error = function(e) {
print("No data1")
setNext=TRUE
}

)
details <- battingDetails
battingDF <- rbind(battingDF,details)
}``````
``````## [1] "Chennai Super Kings-BattingDetails.RData"
## [1] "Deccan Chargers-BattingDetails.RData"
## [1] "Delhi Daredevils-BattingDetails.RData"
## [1] "Kings XI Punjab-BattingDetails.RData"
## [1] "Kochi Tuskers Kerala-BattingDetails.RData"
## [1] "Kolkata Knight Riders-BattingDetails.RData"
## [1] "Mumbai Indians-BattingDetails.RData"
## [1] "Pune Warriors-BattingDetails.RData"
## [1] "Rajasthan Royals-BattingDetails.RData"
## [1] "Royal Challengers Bangalore-BattingDetails.RData"
## [1] "Gujarat Lions-BattingDetails.RData"
## [1] "Rising Pune Supergiants-BattingDetails.RData"``````
``````trends = benford(battingDF\$runs, number.of.digits = 1, discrete = T, sign = "positive")
trends``````
``````##
## Benford object:
##
## Data: battingDF\$runs
## Number of observations used = 10129
## Number of obs. for second order = 123
## First digits analysed = 1
##
## Mantissa:
##
##    Statistic   Value
##         Mean  0.4521
##          Var  0.0856
##  Ex.Kurtosis -1.1570
##     Skewness -0.0033
##
##
## The 5 largest deviations:
##
##   digits absolute.diff
## 1      2        159.37
## 2      9        121.48
## 3      7         93.40
## 4      8         83.12
## 5      1         61.87
##
## Stats:
##
##  Pearson's Chi-squared test
##
## data:  battingDF\$runs
## X-squared = 78.166, df = 8, p-value = 1.143e-13
##
##
##  Mantissa Arc Test
##
## data:  battingDF\$runs
## L2 = 5.8237e-05, df = 2, p-value = 0.5544
##
## Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD): 0.006627966
## MAD Conformity - Nigrini (2012): Acceptable conformity
## Distortion Factor: -20.90333
##
## Remember: Real data will never conform perfectly to Benford's Law. You should not focus on p-values!``````

## 5. Check Benford’s law in India matches

``````setwd("/Users/tvganesh/backup/software/cricket-package/yorkr-cricsheet/yorkrData2020/t20/t20BattingBowlingDetails")

indiaTrends = benford(battingDetails\$runs, number.of.digits = 1, discrete = T, sign = "positive")
plot(indiaTrends)``````

## 6. Check Benford’s law in all of Intl. T20

``````setwd("/Users/tvganesh/backup/software/cricket-package/yorkr-cricsheet/yorkrData2020/t20/t20BattingBowlingDetails")
teams <-c("Australia","India","Pakistan","West Indies", 'Sri Lanka',
"Bermuda","Kenya","Hong Kong","Nepal","Oman","Papua New Guinea",
"United Arab Emirates","Namibia","Cayman Islands","Singapore",
"United States of America","Bhutan","Maldives","Botswana","Nigeria",
"Denmark","Germany","Jersey","Norway","Qatar","Malaysia","Vanuatu",
"Thailand")

for(team in teams){
battingDetails <- NULL
val <- paste(team,"-BattingDetails.RData",sep="")
print(val)
error = function(e) {
print("No data1")
setNext=TRUE
}

)
details <- battingDetails
battingDF <- rbind(battingDF,details)

}
``````intlT20Trends = benford(battingDF\$runs, number.of.digits = 1, discrete = T, sign = "positive")
intlT20Trends``````
``````##
## Benford object:
##
## Data: battingDF\$runs
## Number of observations used = 21833
## Number of obs. for second order = 131
## First digits analysed = 1
##
## Mantissa:
##
##    Statistic  Value
##         Mean  0.447
##          Var  0.085
##  Ex.Kurtosis -1.158
##     Skewness  0.018
##
##
## The 5 largest deviations:
##
##   digits absolute.diff
## 1      2        361.40
## 2      9        276.02
## 3      1        264.61
## 4      7        210.14
## 5      8        198.81
##
## Stats:
##
##  Pearson's Chi-squared test
##
## data:  battingDF\$runs
## X-squared = 202.29, df = 8, p-value < 2.2e-16
##
##
##  Mantissa Arc Test
##
## data:  battingDF\$runs
## L2 = 5.3983e-06, df = 2, p-value = 0.8888
##
## Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD): 0.007821098
## MAD Conformity - Nigrini (2012): Acceptable conformity
## Distortion Factor: -24.11086
##
## Remember: Real data will never conform perfectly to Benford's Law. You should not focus on p-values!``````

## Conclusion

Maths rules our lives, more than we are aware, more that we like to admit. It is there in all of nature. Whether it is the recursive patterns of Mandelbrot sets, the intrinsic notion of beauty through the golden ratio, the murmuration of swallows, the synchronous blinking of fireflies or in the almost univerality of Benford’s law on natural datasets, mathematics govern us.

Isn’t it strange that while we humans pride ourselves of freewill, the runs scored by batsmen in particular formats conform to Benford’s rule for the first digits. It almost looks like, the runs that will be scored is almost to extent predetermined to fall within specified ranges obeying Benford’s law. So much for choice.

Something to be pondered over!

Also see

# Introducing GooglyPlusPlus!!!

“We can lift ourselves out of ignorance, we can find ourselves as creatures of excellence and intelligence and skill.”
“Heaven is not a place, and it is not a time. Heaven is being perfect.”
“Your whole body, from wingtip to wingtip, is nothing more than your thought itself, in a form you can see. Break the chains of your thought, and you break the chains of your body, too.”

From Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, by Richard Bach

## Introduction

The metamorphosis is complete, from eggs to the butterfly! My R package yorkr, went on to become Googly,  and then to GooglyPlus and  now finally GooglyPlusPlus. My latest R Shiny app now provides interactive visualisation of almost all data in Cricsheet. GooglyPlusPlus visualizes the following matches

1. ODI (men)
2. ODI (women)
3. Intl. T20 (men)
4. Intl T20 (women)
5. IPL (Indian Premier League)
6. BBL (Big Bash League)
7. NTB (Natwest T20)
8. PSL (Pakistan Super League)
9. WBBL – Women’s BBL

GooglyPlusPlus is entirely based on my R package yorkr. To know more about yorkr see ‘Revitalizing R package yorkr‘ and the roughly 25+ posts on yorkr in Index of posts

This Shiny app was quite involved, and it took a lot of work to keep things organised and separate for the different forms of cricket. Anyway it is done and I am happy with the outcome.

Before you use the app, I would suggest that you take a look at the video “How to use GooglyPlusPlus?“. In this video, I show the different features of GooglyPlusPlus and how to navigate through them.

Check out GooglyPlusPlus Shiny at GooglyPlusPlus

You can clone/fork and play around with the code of GooglyPlusPlus here at Github

## A. Highlights of GooglyPlusPlus.

The R Shiny app GooglyPlusPlus has the following main pages for the 9 different cricket formats. See below

Important note: Below I will be including some random output from the GooglyPlusPlus app for different match formats, however there is a lot more features in GooglyPlusPlus

## Conclusion

There you have it. I have randomly shown  2 functions for each cricket format. There are many functions in each tab for the for the different match formats – namely IPL, BBL, Intl T20 (men,women), PSL etc.  Go ahead and give GooglyPlusPlus a spin!

To try out GooglyPlusPlus click GooglyPlusPlus. Don’t forget to check out the video How to use GooglyPlusPlus?

You can clone/fork the code from Github at GooglyPlusPlus

Hope you have fun with GooglyPlusPlus!!

You may also like

To see all posts click Index of posts