Finding Your Feet: A Gaussian Process Model for Estimating the Abilities of Batsmen in Test Cricket

Abstract

In the sport of cricket, a player’s batting ability is traditionally measured using the batting average. However, the batting average fails to measure both short‐term changes in ability that occur during an innings and long‐term changes in ability that occur between innings due to factors such as age and experience in various match conditions. We derive and fit a Bayesian parametric model that employs a Gaussian process to measure and predict how the batting abilities of cricket players vary and fluctuate over the course of entire playing careers. The results allow us to better quantify and predict the batting ability of a player, compared with both traditional cricket statistics, such as the batting average, and more complex models, such as the official International Cricket Council ratings.

Innovating a Centuries-Old Sport: How Emerging Data Analytics Tools Are Redefining Cricket

“…For example, Stevenson and Brewer (2017) have proposed a Bayesian hierarchical model that measures the quality of a batsman by estimating a batsman's initial batting ability, peak batting ability, and the time required to achieve peak batting ability during an inning. The pair later extended the model by introducing Gaussian processes to capture fluctuations over a player's career and parameters to account for match-specific conditions (Stevenson & Brewer, 2021). Historically, bowler performance has received less attention.…”

Comparative analysis of top Test batsmen before and after 20th century

“…On the same lines, gaussian model which takes cricket statistics into consideration, was developed which was used to assess batsmen performance in the longest form of cricket i.e. Test cricket (14) . Furthermore, ability indexing technique was developed in which ODI format was consideredwhilejudging a batsman's performance (15) .…”

Rating Batters in Test Cricket

“…Despite this, batsmen have struggled to stay at the crease, as conditions and lapses in focus result in the loss of their wicket, particularly in the modern game. In general, traditional measures such as batting average are used to evaluate a batsman in test cricket [5,6]. Players were awarded points based on the number of runs they score during the game.…”