Category: lpSolve

GooglyPlusPlus2022 optimizes batting/bowling lineup

GooglyPlusPlus2022 is the new avatar of last year’s GooglyPlusPlus2021. Roughly, about 5 years back I had written a post on Using linear programming to optimize T20 batting and bowling line up. This post has been on the back of my mind for a long time and I decided to pay this post a revisit. This requires computing performance of individual batsmen vs bowlers and vice-versa for performing the optimization. So in this latest incarnation, there are 4 new functions

  1. batsmanVsBowlerPerf – Performance of batsmen against chosen bowlers
  2. bowlerVsBatsmanPerf – Performance of bowlers versus specific batsmen
  3. battingOptimization – Optimizing batting line up based on strike rates ad remaining overs
  4. bowlingOptimization – Optimizing bowling line up based on economy rates and remaining overs

These 4 functions have been incorporated in all the supported 9 T20 formats namely a. IPL b. Intl. T20(men) c. Intl. T20 (women) d. BBL e. NTB f. PSL g. WBB h. CPL i. SSM

Check out GooglyPlusPlus2022!!

You can clone/fork the code for GooglyPlusPlus2022 from Github from gpp2022-1

With this latest update you can do a myriad of analyses of batsmen, bowlers, teams, matches. This is just-in-time for the IPL Mega-auction!! Do check out these other posts of GooglyPlusPlus for other detailed analysis

  1. GooglyPlusPlus2021: Towards more picturesque analytics!
  2. GooglyPlusPlus2021 now with power play, middle and death over analysis
  3. GooglyPlusPlus2021 adds new bells and whistles!!
  4. GooglyPlusPlus2021 is now fully interactive!!!

A) Batsman Vs Bowlers – This option computes the performance of individual batsman against individual bowlers

a) IPL Batsmen vs Bowlers

Included below are the performances of Dhoni, Raina and Kohli against Malinga, Ashwin and Bumrah. Note: The last 2 text box input are not required for this.

b) Intl. T20 (men) Batsmen vs Bowlers

Note: You can type the name and choose from the drop down list

B) Bowler vs Batsmen – You can check the performance of specific bowlers against specific batsmen

a) Intl. T20 (women) India vs Australia

b) PSL Bowlers vs Batsmen

C) Strategy for optimizing batting and bowling line up

From the above 2 tabs, it is obvious, that different bowlers have different ER and wicket rate against different batsmen. In other words, the effectiveness of the bowlers varies by batsmen. Conversely, batsmen are more comfortable with certain bowlers versus others and this shows up in different strike rates.

Hence during the death overs, when trying to restrict batsmen to a certain score or on the flip side when the batting side needs to score a target within certain overs, we need to take advantage of the relative effectiveness of bowlers vs batsmen for optimising bowling and aggressiveness of batsmen versus bowlers to quickly reach the target.

This is the approach that is used for bowling and batting optimisation. For optimising bowling, we need to formulate a minimisation problem based on ER rates and for optimising batting, a maximisation strategy is chosen based on SR. ‘Integer programming’ is used to compute during the last set of overs

This latest version includes optimization using “integer programming” based on R package lpSolve.

Here are the 2 formulations

Assume there are 3 bowlers – bwlr_{1},bwlr_{2},bwlr_{3}
and there are 3 batsmen – bman_{1},bman_{2},bman_{3}

I) LP Formulation for bowling order

Let the economy rate er_{ij} be the Economy Rate of the jth bowler to the ith batsman. Also if remaining overs for the bowlers are o_{1},o_{2},o_{3}
and the total number of overs left to be bowled are
o_{1}+o_{2}+o_{3} = N

Let the economy rate er_{ij} be the Economy Rate of the jth bowler to the ith batsman.
Objective function : Minimize –
er_{11}*o_{11} + er_{12}*o_{12} +..+er_{1n}*o_{1n}+ er_{21}*o_{21} + er_{22}*o_{22}+.. + er_{22}*o_{2n}+ er_{m1}*o_{m1}+..+ er_{mn}*o_{mn}
i.e.
\sum_{i=1}^{i=m}\sum_{j=1}^{i=n}er_{ij}*o_{ij}
Constraints
Where o_{j} is the number of overs remaining for the jth bowler against  ‘k’ batsmen
o_{j1} + o_{j2} + .. o_{jk} < o_{j}
and if the total number of overs remaining to be bowled is N then
o_{1} + o_{2} +...+ o_{k} = N or
\sum_{j=1}^{j=k} o_{j} =N
The overs that any bowler can bowl is o_{j} >=0

II) LP Formulation for batting lineup

Let the strike rate sr_{ij}  be the Strike Rate of the ith batsman to the jth bowler
Objective function : Maximize –
sr_{11}*o_{11} + sr_{12}*o_{12} +..+ sr_{1n}*o_{1n}+ sr_{21}*o_{21} + sr_{22}*o_{22}+.. sr_{2n}*o_{2n}+ sr_{m1}*o_{m1}+..+ sr_{mn}*o_{mn}
i.e.
\sum_{i=1}^{i=4}\sum_{j=1}^{i=3}sr_{ij}*o_{ij}
Constraints
Where o_{j} is the number of overs remaining for the jth bowler against  ‘k’ batsmen
o_{j1} + o_{j2} + .. o_{jk} < o_{j}
and the total number of overs remaining to be bowled is N then
o_{1} + o_{2} +...+ o_{k} = N or
\sum_{j=1}^{j=k} o_{j} =N
The overs that any bowler can bowl is
o_{j} >=0

C) Optimized bowling lineup

a) IPL – Optimizing bowling line up

Note: For computing the Optimal bowling lineup, the total number of overs remaining and the number of overs for each bowler have to be entered.

b) PSL – Optimizing batting line up

d) Optimized batting lineup

a) Intl. T20 (men) India vs England

b) Carribean Premier League – Optimizing batting line up

Give GooglyPlusPlus2022 a spin!

You can also check the code here gpp2022-1

Hope you have a good time with GooglyPlusPlus2022!

Also see

  1. Re-working the Lucy Richardson algorithm in OpenCV
  2. Deconstructing Convolutional Neural Networks with Tensorflow and Keras
  3. Deep Learning from first principles in Python, R and Octave – Part 5
  4. Cricketr adds team analytics to its repertoire!!!
  5. Practical Machine Learning with R and Python – Part 4
  6. Cricpy takes a swing at the ODIs
  7. yorkpy takes a hat-trick, bowls out Intl. T20s, BBL and Natwest T20!!!
  8. Big Data-4: Webserver log analysis with RDDs, Pyspark, SparkR and SparklyR
  9. Introducing QCSimulator: A 5-qubit quantum computing simulator in R

To see all posts click Index of posts

Using Linear Programming (LP) for optimizing bowling change or batting lineup in T20 cricket

In my recent post My travels through the realms of Data Science, Machine Learning, Deep Learning and (AI),I had recounted my journey in the domains of of Data Science, Machine Learning (ML), and more recently Deep Learning (DL) all of which are useful while analyzing data. Of late, I have come to the realization that there are many facets to data. And to glean insights from data, Data Science, ML and DL alone are not sufficient and one needs to also have a good handle on linear programming and optimization. My colleague at IBM Research also concurred with this view and told me he had arrived at this conclusion several years ago. While ML & DL are useful and interesting to make inferences and predictions of outputs from input variables, optimization computes the choice of input which result in maximum or minimum. So I made a small course correction and started on a course from India’s own NPTEL Introduction to Linear Programming by Prof G. Srinivasan of IIT Madras. The lectures are delivered with remarkable clarity by the Prof and I am just about halfway through the course (each lecture is of 50-55 min duration) when I decided that I needed to try to formulate and solve some real world Linear Programming problem.

As usual, I turned towards cricket for some appropriate situations, and sure enough it was there in the open. For this LP formulation I take International T20 and IPL, though International ODI will also work equally well.  You can download the associated code and data for this from Github at LP-cricket-analysis

In T20 matches the captain has to make choice of how to rotate bowlers with the aim of restricting the batting side. Conversely, the batsmen need to take advantage of the bowling strength to maximize the runs scored.

Note:
a) A simple and obvious strategy would be
– If the ith bowler’s economy rate is less than the economy rate of the jth bowler i.e.
er_{i} < er_{j} then have bowler ‘i’ to bowl more overs as his/her economy rate is better

b)A better strategy would be to consider the economy rate of each bowler against each batsman. How often we have seen bowlers who have a great bowling average get punished by some batsman, or a bowler who is generally very poor is very effective against a particular batsman. i.e. er_{ij} < er_{ik} where the jth bowler is more effective than the kth bowler against the ith batsman. This now becomes a linear optimization problem as we can have several combinations of number of overs x economy rate for different bowlers and we will have to solve this algorithmically to determine the lowest score for bowling performance or highest score for batting order.

This post uses the latter approach to optimize bowling change and batting lineup.

Let is take a hypothetical situation
Assume there are 3 bowlers – bwlr_{1},bwlr_{2},bwlr_{3}
and there are 4 batsmen – bman_{1},bman_{2},bman_{3},bman_{4}

Let the economy rate er_{ij} be the Economy Rate of the jth bowler to the ith batsman. Also if remaining overs for the bowlers are o_{1},o_{2},o_{3}
and the total number of overs left to be bowled are
o_{1}+o_{2}+o_{3} = N then the question is

a) Given the economy rate of each bowler per batsman, how many overs should each bowler bowl, so that the total runs scored by all the batsmen are minimum?

b) Alternatively, if the know the individual strike rate of a batsman against the individual bowlers, how many overs should each batsman face with a bowler so that the total runs scored is maximized?

1. LP Formulation for bowling order

Let the economy rate 

er_{ij}

 be the Economy Rate of the jth bowler to the ith batsman.
Objective function : Minimize – 

\sum_{i=1}^{i=4}\sum_{j=1}^{i=3}er_{ij}*o_{j}

Where k is the number overs o, remaining for the jth bowler o_{j} <= k_{j} and the total number of overs remaining to be bowled is N then –\sum o_{j} = N Also o_{j} >=0
The overs that any bowler can bowl can be >=0

2. LP Formulation for batting lineup

Where k is the number overs o, remaining for the jth bowler o_{j} <= k_{j} and the total number of overs remaining to be bowled is N then –\sum o_{j} = N Also o_{j} >=0
The overs that any bowler can bowl can be >= 0 or any number that the bowler has already bowled.

For this maximization and minimization problem I used lpSolveAPI.

3. LP formulation (Example 1)

Initially I created a test example to ensure that I get the LP formulation and solution correct. Here the er1=4 and er2=3 and o1 & o2 are the overs bowled by bowlers 1 & 2. Also o1+o2=4 In this example as below

o1 o2 Obj Fun(=4o1+3o2)
1    3      13
2    2      14
3    1      15

library(lpSolveAPI)
library(dplyr)
library(knitr)
lprec <- make.lp(0, 2)
a <-lp.control(lprec, sense="min")
set.objfn(lprec, c(4, 3))  # Economy Rate of 4 and 3 for er1 and er2
add.constraint(lprec, c(1, 1), "=",4)  # o1 + o2 =4
add.constraint(lprec, c(1, 0), ">",1)  # o1 > 1
add.constraint(lprec, c(0, 1), ">",1)  # o2 > 1
lprec

## Model name: 
##             C1    C2       
## Minimize     4     3       
## R1           1     1   =  4
## R2           1     0  >=  1
## R3           0     1  >=  1
## Kind       Std   Std       
## Type      Real  Real       
## Upper      Inf   Inf       
## Lower        0     0

b <-solve(lprec)
get.objective(lprec) # 13

## [1] 13

get.variables(lprec) # 1    3 

## [1] 1 3

Note 1: In the above example 13 runs is the minimum that can be scored and this requires

  • o1=1
  • o2=3

Note 2:The numbers in the columns represent the number of overs that need to be bowled by a bowler to the corresponding batsman.

4. LP formulation (Example 2)

In this formulation there are 2 bowlers and 2 batsmen o11,o12 are the oves bowled by bowler 1 to batsmen 1 & 2 and o21, o22 are the overs bowled by bowler 2 to batsmen 1 & 2 er11=4, er12=2,er21=2,er22=5 o11+o12+o21+o22=5

The solution for this manually computed is B1 B2 B1 B2 Runs
1 1 1 2 18
1 2 1 1 15
2 1 1 1 17
1 1 2 1 15

lprec <- make.lp(0, 4)
a <-lp.control(lprec, sense="min")
set.objfn(lprec, c(4, 2,2,5))
add.constraint(lprec, c(1, 1,0,0), "<=",8)
add.constraint(lprec, c(0, 0,1,1), "<=",7)
add.constraint(lprec, c(1, 1,1,1), "=",5)
add.constraint(lprec, c(1, 0,0,0), ">",1)
add.constraint(lprec, c(0, 1,0,0), ">",1)
add.constraint(lprec, c(0, 0,1,0), ">",1)
add.constraint(lprec, c(0, 0,0,1), ">",1)
lprec

## Model name: 
##             C1    C2    C3    C4       
## Minimize     4     2     2     5       
## R1           1     1     0     0  <=  8
## R2           0     0     1     1  <=  7
## R3           1     1     1     1   =  5
## R4           1     0     0     0  >=  1
## R5           0     1     0     0  >=  1
## R6           0     0     1     0  >=  1
## R7           0     0     0     1  >=  1
## Kind       Std   Std   Std   Std       
## Type      Real  Real  Real  Real       
## Upper      Inf   Inf   Inf   Inf       
## Lower        0     0     0     0

b<-solve(lprec)
get.objective(lprec) 

## [1] 15

get.variables(lprec) 

## [1] 1 2 1 1

Note: In the above example 15 runs is the minimum that can be scored and this requires

  • o11=1
  • o12=2
  • o21=1
  • o22=1

It is possible to keep the minimum to other values and solves also.

5. LP formulation for International T20 India vs Australia (Batting lineup)

To analyze batting and bowling lineups in the cricket world I needed to get the ball-by-ball details of runs scored by each batsman against each of the bowlers. Fortunately I had already created this with my R package yorkr. yorkr processes yaml data from Cricsheet. So I copied the data of all matches between Australia and India in International T20s. You can download my processed data for International T20 at Inswinger

load("Australia-India-allMatches.RData")
dim(matches)

## [1] 3541   25

The following functions compute the ‘Strike Rate’ of a batsman as

SR=1/overs∗∑RunsScoredSR=1/overs∗∑RunsScored

Also the Economy Rate is computed as

ER=1/overs∗∑RunsConcededER=1/overs∗∑RunsConcededIncidentally the SR=ER

# Compute the Strike Rate of the batsman
computeSR <- function(batsman1,bowler1){
    a <- matches %>% filter(batsman==batsman1 & bowler==bowler1) 
    a1 <- a %>% summarize(totalRuns=sum(runs),count=n()) %>% mutate(SR=(totalRuns/count)*6)
    a1
}

# Compute the Economy Rate of the batsman
computeER <- function(batsman1,bowler1){
    a <- matches %>% filter(batsman==batsman1 & bowler==bowler1) 
    a1 <- a %>% summarize(totalRuns=sum(runs),count=n()) %>% mutate(ER=(totalRuns/count)*6)
    a1
}

Here I compute the Strike Rate of Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni against Shane Watson, Brett Lee and MA Starc

 # Kohli
kohliWatson<- computeSR("V Kohli","SR Watson")
kohliWatson

##   totalRuns count       SR
## 1        45    37 7.297297

kohliLee <- computeSR("V Kohli","B Lee")
kohliLee

##   totalRuns count       SR
## 1        10     7 8.571429

kohliStarc <- computeSR("V Kohli","MA Starc")
kohliStarc

##   totalRuns count       SR
## 1        11     9 7.333333

# Yuvraj
yuvrajWatson<- computeSR("Yuvraj Singh","SR Watson")
yuvrajWatson

##   totalRuns count       SR
## 1        24    22 6.545455

yuvrajLee <- computeSR("Yuvraj Singh","B Lee")
yuvrajLee

##   totalRuns count       SR
## 1        12     7 10.28571

yuvrajStarc <- computeSR("Yuvraj Singh","MA Starc")
yuvrajStarc

##   totalRuns count SR
## 1        12     8  9

# MS Dhoni
dhoniWatson<- computeSR("MS Dhoni","SR Watson")
dhoniWatson

##   totalRuns count       SR
## 1        33    28 7.071429

dhoniLee <- computeSR("MS Dhoni","B Lee")
dhoniLee

##   totalRuns count  SR
## 1        26    20 7.8

dhoniStarc <- computeSR("MS Dhoni","MA Starc")
dhoniStarc

##   totalRuns count   SR
## 1        11     8 8.25

When we consider the batting lineup, the problem is one of maximization. Formulating and solving

# 3 batsman x 3 bowlers
lprec <- make.lp(0, 9)
# Maximization
a<-lp.control(lprec, sense="max")

# Set the objective function
set.objfn(lprec, c(kohliWatson$SR, kohliLee$SR,kohliStarc$SR,
                   yuvrajWatson$SR,yuvrajLee$SR,yuvrajStarc$SR,
                   dhoniWatson$SR,dhoniLee$SR,dhoniStarc$SR))

#Assume the  bowlers have 3,4,3 overs left respectively
add.constraint(lprec, c(1, 1,1,0,0,0, 0,0,0), "<=",3)
add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,1,1,1,0,0,0), "<=",4)
add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1), "<=",3)
#o11+o12+o13+o21+o22+o23+o31+o32+o33=8 (overs remaining)
add.constraint(lprec, c(1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1), "=",8) 


add.constraint(lprec, c(1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0), ">=",1) #o11 >=1
add.constraint(lprec, c(0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0), ">=",0) #o12 >=0
add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0), ">=",0) #o13 >=0
add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0), ">=",1) #o21 >=1
add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0), ">=",1) #o22 >=1
add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0), ">=",0) #o23 >=0
add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0), ">=",1) #o31 >=1
add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0), ">=",0) #o32 >=0
add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1), ">=",0) #o33 >=0

lprec

## Model name: 
##   a linear program with 9 decision variables and 13 constraints

b <-solve(lprec)
get.objective(lprec) #  

## [1] 68.91418

get.variables(lprec) # 

## [1] 1 2 0 1 3 0 1 0 0

This shows that the maximum runs that can be scored for the current strike rate is 81.9 runs in 8 overs The breakup is as follows

Batsman Watson B Lee MA Starc

Kohli 1 1 1
Yuvraj 0 3 0
Dhoni 2 0 0
Overs 3 4 1
Total=8

This is also shown below

e <- as.data.frame(rbind(c(1,1,1),c(0,3,0),c(2,0,0),c(3,4,1)))
names(e) <- c("S Watson","B Lee","MA Starc")
rownames(e) <- c("Kohli","Yuvraj","Dhoni","Overs")
e

##        S Watson B Lee MA Starc
## Kohli         1     1        1
## Yuvraj        0     3        0
## Dhoni         2     0        0
## Overs         3     4        1

Note: This assumes that the batsmen perform at their current Strike Rate. Howvever anything can happen in a real game, but nevertheless this is a fairly reasonable estimate of the performance

Note 2:The numbers in the columns represent the number of overs that need to be bowled by a bowler to the corresponding batsman.

6. LP formulation for International T20 India vs Australia (Bowling lineup)

For this I compute how the bowling should be rotated between R Ashwin, RA Jadeja and JJ Bumrah when taking into account their performance against batsmen like Shane Watson, AJ Finch and David Warner. For the bowling performance I take the Economy rate of the bowlers. The data is the same as above

computeSR <- function(batsman1,bowler1){
    a <- matches %>% filter(batsman==batsman1 & bowler==bowler1) 
    a1 <- a %>% summarize(totalRuns=sum(runs),count=n()) %>% mutate(SR=(totalRuns/count)*6)
    a1
}
# RA Jadeja
jadejaWatson<- computeER("SR Watson","RA Jadeja")
jadejaWatson

##   totalRuns count       ER
## 1        60    29 12.41379

jadejaFinch <- computeER("AJ Finch","RA Jadeja")
jadejaFinch

##   totalRuns count       ER
## 1        36    33 6.545455

jadejaWarner <- computeER("DA Warner","RA Jadeja")
jadejaWarner

##   totalRuns count       ER
## 1        23    11 12.54545

# Ashwin
ashwinWatson<- computeER("SR Watson","R Ashwin")
ashwinWatson

##   totalRuns count       ER
## 1        41    26 9.461538

ashwinFinch <- computeER("AJ Finch","R Ashwin")
ashwinFinch

##   totalRuns count   ER
## 1        63    36 10.5

ashwinWarner <- computeER("DA Warner","R Ashwin")
ashwinWarner

##   totalRuns count       ER
## 1        38    28 8.142857

# JJ Bunrah
bumrahWatson<- computeER("SR Watson","JJ Bumrah")
bumrahWatson

##   totalRuns count  ER
## 1        22    20 6.6

bumrahFinch <- computeER("AJ Finch","JJ Bumrah")
bumrahFinch

##   totalRuns count       ER
## 1        25    19 7.894737

bumrahWarner <- computeER("DA Warner","JJ Bumrah")
bumrahWarner

##   totalRuns count ER
## 1         2     4  3

Formulating solving the bowling lineup is shown below

lprec <- make.lp(0, 9)
a <-lp.control(lprec, sense="min")

# Set the objective function
set.objfn(lprec, c(jadejaWatson$ER, jadejaFinch$ER,jadejaWarner$ER,
                   ashwinWatson$ER,ashwinFinch$ER,ashwinWarner$ER,
                   bumrahWatson$ER,bumrahFinch$ER,bumrahWarner$ER))

add.constraint(lprec, c(1, 1,1,0,0,0, 0,0,0), "<=",4) # Jadeja has 4 overs
add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,1,1,1,0,0,0), "<=",3)   # Ashwin has 3 overs left
add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1), "<=",4)   # Bumrah has 4 overs left
add.constraint(lprec, c(1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1), "=",10) # Total overs = 10
add.constraint(lprec, c(1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0), ">=",1)
add.constraint(lprec, c(0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0), ">=",0)
add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0), ">=",1)
add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0), ">=",0)
add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0), ">=",1)
add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0), ">=",0)
add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0), ">=",0)
add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0), ">=",1)
add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1), ">=",0)

lprec

## Model name: 
##   a linear program with 9 decision variables and 13 constraints

b <-solve(lprec)
get.objective(lprec) #  

## [1] 73.58775

get.variables(lprec) # 

## [1] 1 2 1 0 1 1 0 1 3

The minimum runs that will be conceded by these 3 bowlers in 10 overs is 73.58 assuming the bowling is rotated as follows

e <- as.data.frame(rbind(c(1,0,0),c(2,1,1),c(1,1,3),c(4,2,4)))
names(e) <- c("RA Jadeja","R Ashwin","JJ Bumrah")
rownames(e) <- c("S Watson","AJ Finch","DA Warner","Overs")
e 

##           RA Jadeja R Ashwin JJ Bumrah
## S Watson          1        0         0
## AJ Finch          2        1         1
## DA Warner         1        1         3
## Overs             4        2         4

#Total overs=10

7. LP formulation for IPL (Mumbai Indians – Kolkata Knight Riders – Bowling lineup)

As in the case of International T20s I also have processed IPL data derived from my R package yorkr. yorkr. yorkr processes yaml data from Cricsheet. The processed data for all IPL matches can be downloaded from GooglyPlus

load("Mumbai Indians-Kolkata Knight Riders-allMatches.RData")
dim(matches)

## [1] 4237   25

# Compute the Economy Rate of the batsman

# Gambhir
gambhirMalinga <- computeER("G Gambhir","SL Malinga")
gambhirHarbhajan <- computeER("G Gambhir","Harbhajan Singh")
gambhirPollard <- computeER("G Gambhir","KA Pollard")

#Yusuf Pathan
yusufMalinga <- computeER("YK Pathan","SL Malinga")
yusufHarbhajan <- computeER("YK Pathan","Harbhajan Singh")
yusufPollard <- computeER("YK Pathan","KA Pollard")

#JH Kallis
kallisMalinga <- computeER("JH Kallis","SL Malinga")
kallisHarbhajan <- computeER("JH Kallis","Harbhajan Singh")
kallisPollard <- computeER("JH Kallis","KA Pollard")

#RV Uthappa
uthappaMalinga <- computeER("RV Uthappa","SL Malinga")
uthappaHarbhajan <- computeER("RV Uthappa","Harbhajan Singh")
uthappaPollard <- computeER("RV Uthappa","KA Pollard")

Formulating and solving this for the bowling lineup of Mumbai Indians against Kolkata Knight Riders

 library("lpSolveAPI")
 lprec <- make.lp(0, 12)
 a=lp.control(lprec, sense="min")
 
 set.objfn(lprec, c(gambhirMalinga$ER, yusufMalinga$ER,kallisMalinga$ER,uthappaMalinga$ER,
                    gambhirHarbhajan$ER,yusufHarbhajan$ER,kallisHarbhajan$ER,uthappaHarbhajan$ER,
                    gambhirPollard$ER,yusufPollard$ER,kallisPollard$ER,uthappaPollard$ER))
 
 add.constraint(lprec, c(1,1,1,1, 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0), "<=",4)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0), "<=",4)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1), "<=",4)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1), "=",10)
 
 add.constraint(lprec, c(1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0), ">=",0)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0), ">=",1)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0), ">=",0)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0), ">=",0)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0), ">=",0)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0), ">=",1)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0), ">=",0)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0), ">=",1)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0), ">=",0)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0), ">=",1)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0), ">=",0)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1), ">=",0)
 
 lprec

## Model name: 
##   a linear program with 12 decision variables and 16 constraints

 b=solve(lprec)
 get.objective(lprec) #  

## [1] 55.57887

 get.variables(lprec) # 

##  [1] 3 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 3 1 0 0

e <- as.data.frame(rbind(c(3,1,0,0,4),c(0, 1, 0,1,2),c(3, 1, 0,0,4)))
names(e) <- c("Gambhir","Yusuf","Kallis","Uthappa","Overs")
rownames(e) <- c("Malinga","Harbhajan","Pollard") 
e

##           Gambhir Yusuf Kallis Uthappa Overs
## Malinga         3     1      0       0     4
## Harbhajan       0     1      0       1     2
## Pollard         3     1      0       0     4

#Total overs=10

8. LP formulation for IPL (Mumbai Indians – Kolkata Knight Riders – Batting lineup)

As I mentioned it is possible to perform a maximation with the same formulation since computeSR<==>computeER

This just flips the problem around and computes the maximum runs that can be scored for the batsman’s Strike rate (this is same as the bowler’s Economy rate)

 library("lpSolveAPI")
 lprec <- make.lp(0, 12)
 a=lp.control(lprec, sense="max")
 
 a <-set.objfn(lprec, c(gambhirMalinga$ER, yusufMalinga$ER,kallisMalinga$ER,uthappaMalinga$ER,
                    gambhirHarbhajan$ER,yusufHarbhajan$ER,kallisHarbhajan$ER,uthappaHarbhajan$ER,
                    gambhirPollard$ER,yusufPollard$ER,kallisPollard$ER,uthappaPollard$ER))
 
 
 add.constraint(lprec, c(1,1,1,1, 0,0,0,0, 0,0,0,0), "<=",4)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,0,0,0,0), "<=",4)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,1), "<=",4)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1), "=",11)
 
 add.constraint(lprec, c(1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0), ">=",0)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0), ">=",1)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0), ">=",0)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0), ">=",0)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0), ">=",0)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0), ">=",1)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0), ">=",0)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0), ">=",1)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0,0), ">=",0)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0,0), ">=",1)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,0), ">=",0)
 add.constraint(lprec, c(0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1), ">=",0)
 lprec

## Model name: 
##   a linear program with 12 decision variables and 16 constraints

 b=solve(lprec)
 get.objective(lprec) #  

## [1] 94.22649

 get.variables(lprec) # 

##  [1] 0 3 0 0 0 1 0 3 0 1 3 0

e <- as.data.frame(rbind(c(0,3,0,0,3),c(0, 1, 0,3,4),c(0, 1, 3,0,4)))
names(e) <- c("Gambhir","Yusuf","Kallis","Uthappa","Overs")
rownames(e) <- c("Malinga","Harbhajan","Pollard") 
e

##           Gambhir Yusuf Kallis Uthappa Overs
## Malinga         0     3      0       0     3
## Harbhajan       0     1      0       3     4
## Pollard         0     1      3       0     4

#Total overs=11

Conclusion: It is possible to thus determine the optimum no of overs to give to a specific bowler based on his/her Economy Rate with a particular batsman. Similarly one can determine the maximim runs that can be scored by a batsmen based on their strike rate with bowlers. However, while this may provide some indication a cricket like any other game depends on a fair amount of chance.