After India registered a thumping win over Australia at Perth last year, another event grasped the attention of the cricketing world 10,000 kilometers away at Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It was the IPL Mega Auction. With its highs, lows, shocks, and surprises, the Mega Auction was nothing short of a spectacle. To the fans, it bore a lot more significance than just an entertaining watch.
The decisions that each team made, the calls they took at crunch moments, and the prices they fixed for each player, weren’t done without accuracy and precision. So, how did each franchise land at the exact number for each player; what metrics enabled them to judge a player’s present performance rightfully, and how could they judge all the parameters before taking any important call?
The simple answer for that is ‘Data Analytics’.
So, how did ‘Data Analytics’ take over the world and why is it so important in the modern-day sporting context? To get a full grasp of that, one must first understand what is Data Analytics and how is it different from relative but different fields like Data Science, Data Information Visualization, etc.
Data Analytics is simply the step-by-step process of inspecting, cleansing, transforming, and modeling data to gather useful information that will better suit one’s needs. It is different from Data Science, in that it doesn’t deal with complicated scientific methods but it does utilize statistics and algorithms for extracting useful data. Data Information Visualization is rather a subset of Data Analytics and doesn’t encapsulate the whole aspect of Analytics.
In the sporting context, it’s naturally called ‘Sports Analytics’, with each sporting discipline further lending its name to it i.e. Cricket Analyst, Football Analyst, Tennis Analyst, etc.
Let’s take a Cricket Analyst for example. Cricket, a sport played by the Royalties during the British Imperial period, has existed for nearly 200 years. However, it is only in modern times that the sport ticked off in its global popularity. It is the second-most popular sport in the world, and its rise in popularity also created a huge demand for Data Analysts. IPL plays a huge role in spearheading its popularity.
IPL, a domestic T20 tournament that started 16 years ago in India, has now become a monstrous giant in terms of the wealth it generates. It’s as if a lizard has grown in size to be a dragon. Each IPL team today sits with their team of coaches, owners, and a dedicated and hardworking Analyst to help them make informed decisions.
Collecting data on a batsman such as his last 20 T20 scores and then analyzing them with applications and software, will help them understand his weaknesses and strengths. ‘What shot is he really weak at?’, ‘What delivery does he get out to more frequently?’, ‘What are his areas of strength?’ and ‘What areas he should work on?’ are just some of the many questions that get answered. The same applies to bowlers, fielders, wicket-keepers, etc.
This wasn’t the case 16 years ago when IPL made its debut. Although Data Analytics did exist, it wasn’t as technologically advanced and accurate as today. Scouters often relied on a player’s current form and tried to process the information from fresh memory. The decisions weren’t wrong and manual judgment did the work. But it had its fair share of imperfections and misses. Data Analytics brought a level of precision and accuracy that was unprecedented. Scouters now reach remote areas in India to gather information about young teenage players. Therefore, it allows them to pick young, budding cricketers like picking a cherry before it’s ripe. Cricket Analytics has found its application in the deepest roots of the sport in our country.
Even during a cricket match, Data Analytics finds its use constantly after almost every ball. In the thick of a T20 cricket match, when every delivery shifts the momentum of the game, Analysts provide valuable information to coaches which is then relayed to the captains on the field.
Decisions like ‘whether to bowl wide outside the off stump’ or ‘a slower bouncer’ or ‘an off-cutter’ or ‘an attempted fast yorker’ or anything else, are often taken based on where the weakness of the on-strike batter lies. Gathering this information from past data is now a slice of cake. Decisions that were previously taken wholly instinctively by the captains and bowlers/batters on the field are now significantly informed by Cricket Analysts.
This is not to say that instinct and gut feeling have gone out the window. What happened was that Sports Analytics has shaped the way any athlete thinks. The analytics doesn’t just consider the data of athletes, but also other factors like weather conditions, pitch conditions, how the ground soil or the moisture in the air might affect the game, etc. Thereby, Data Analytics has become an extremely useful and mandatory tool for sporting teams.
Hence, when some of the players like Shreyas Iyer (26.75 crores) and Rishabh Pant (27 crores) went for astronomical prices at the IPL Mega Auction, surprising as it was to many, it was indeed a very calculated, and measured decision. While some information may go unnoticed by the naked human eye or memory, Analysts still figure it out using proper data. Adjacently, the same analysts help manage the finances of the franchise and help them keep it under budget. Risk Assessment and Risk Analytics also play a major part in this decision-making.
With all the focus and importance on recruitment and buying of players, it is worth noting that Sports Analytics doesn’t just aid in this aspect. It has more benefits. It helps prevent injuries and reduce chances of getting hurt or medical emergencies on the field. It analyzes heart rate, oxygen levels, calorific expenditure, etc. to maintain the good health of an athlete and identify any imminent health risks. Similarly, it has also helped athletes with better recovery tactics, which reduced injury time and helped them get back on the field quickly and with improved health.
Other areas of the sport like fan engagement and broadcast commentary have also been impacted by Data Science in one way or another.
Sports Analysts have been a burgeoning occupation for quite some time now, and it has blossomed into a full-fledged lucrative job in recent times. The salary of an analyst may range from 4 LPA and up to 12 LPA. A Cricket Analyst gets paid 10-12 LPA, and the pay scale may rise for those who work in IPL franchises. Since the sporting culture isn’t going anywhere, especially for cricket in our country, it’s a profession worth pursuing. Most MBA colleges are now giving ample importance to these fields of study.
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