If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I have something of a crush on International Cricket Captain. Much of the modelling I’ve done is an attempt to recreate what that game could do in simulating whole matches in the blink of an eye. Here is a link to the International Cricket Captain website, if you think you might have 300 hours to kill this summer.
There are two parts of the International Cricket Captain engine I’ve not incorporated: Form and Fatigue. I don’t believe in form and won’t incorporate it until it shows up in the numbers (if the facts change, I’ll change my mind). Let’s look at fatigue instead…
Background
Fixture congestion is nothing new – who can forget 1066, when Harold II’s middle order collapsed at Sussex just 19 days after an attritional fixture on a Yorkshire out-ground.
The Royal London One Day Cup (RLODC) has a punishing schedule – most matches are played less than 48 hours after the last one finished. Some teams get longer breaks- which means we have tired players against slightly less tired ones. This gives us some tasty data to measure the impact of fatigue.
Before we get into the numbers, I’d like to define the tiredness in question – it’s mid-week weariness. Not the short term fatigue that means that as a bowler goes through a spell their effectiveness drops, nor the possibility of long term decline over a season from a relentless schedule. This tiredness is like the mid-music-festival malaise one might experience on the Saturday of Glastonbury, when the preceding days take their toll.
To define a “fatigue factor” we need to see how players fare when one team has had more rest than the other.
Findings
Factors affecting RLODC Team Performance
- Home Advantage: Home team gains 0.13 runs per over. Away team loses 0.13 runs per over. Net effect on a match 13 runs. I wasn’t specifically looking for this, but had to analyse it as a factor that needed to be controlled for before conclude on Fatigue.
- Fatigue: Batting team better rested gains 0.23 runs per over. More rested Bowlers concede 0.23 fewer runs per over. Maximum impact on a match 23 runs.
Implications i. 2019 RLODC
Fatigue has an interesting effect on the semi finals: the winners of the North and South groups host the winners of quarter finals between the teams which finished second and third in the groups. The quarter finals take place on the 10th May 2019, the semi finals on the 12th May 2019.
Nottinghamshire and Hampshire have been the best teams in the group stage, and will have both home advantage and the benefit of >6 days rest, rather than the two days of rest the quarter finalists have.
I will running these extra inputs through my 50 over model this weekend to see if this insight offers any gambling opportunities. My expectation is that I’m late to the party on this, and the odds will already factor in rest periods and home advantage.
Implications ii. Selection
In a tournament like the RLODC, we should see more rotation of bowlers in and out of the team, particularly if a squad has bowling depth. Sussex only used eight bowlers in as many matches: who knows whether giving Hamza a day off might have been the difference that got them into the quarter finals, instead of mid-table disappointment. Just imagine if Sussex had had Chris Jordan available to them for the second half of the group stages, rather than on England duty.
Further Reading
Green All Over – Betting Blog, see link for a post on the impact of rest on Baseball odds (which reminded me that there was a potential input I was ignoring).
Red Ball Data 