The pressure of cricket captaincy brings out the best in batters but not bowlers

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2024-07-17 09:01

International

Image by Yogendra Singh from Pixabay

The pressure of cricket captaincy may bring out the best in batters but not bowlers, according to international research, which found that batting captains typically averaged around 16 per cent more runs than non-captain batters, while bowling captains took around 18% fewer wickets on average than non-captain-bowlers. The research analysed individual and team performance in 4,418 men's One-Day International cricket matches, and 2,863 individual players, between 1971 and 2024. The researchers also found that average performance for both batting and bowling captains decreases markedly post-captaincy, even falling below pre-captaincy levels.

Media release

From: The Royal Society

Captain’s knock – The pressure of cricket captaincy may bring out the best in batters but not bowlers. In the first comprehensive analysis of individual and team performance in One-Day International cricket researchers analysed 4,418 men’s ODI matches, and 2,863 individual players, between 1971 and 2024. One of the insights was that batting captains typically averaged ~16% more runs than non-captain batters, while bowling captains took ~18% fewer wickets on average than non-captain-bowlers. Open Science...

Journal/
conference: Royal Society Open Science

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Central European University, Austria

Funder: F.B. acknowledges support from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under award number FA8655-22-1-7025.

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