Cricket World Cup 2015: Real Time Stats Bring Fans Closer To The Game

The International Cricket Committee (ICC) says the use of real time statistical analysis has brought fans closer to the 2015 Cricket World Cup (CWC) than any other edition of the tournament.

A new website with match reports, video highlights and social media features was built for the tournament, alongside real time and historical statistics.

Forty years’ worth of CWC data was analysed by SAP to create nuggets of information for fans and media, while a HANA-powered match centre analyses each ball in real time.

High profile showcase

SAP, which also works with other sporting organisations like the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), was keen to work with the ICC because of the amount of data involved in cricket – making it an ideal high profile showcase for HANA.

For its part, the ICC was keen to improve fan engagement in a bid to attract new fans to the sport and retain existing ones. Cricket, especially in South Asia, attracts significant television audiences and media interest, but competes in a crowded sporting landscape with the likes of football and rugby union for sports’ fans time.

“It’s the digital side of things where technology has helped us tremendously,” said ICC CEO David Richardson. “We used to have a website but it was for rules and regulations, fixtures lists etc. It wasn’t fan engaging or fan focused.”

Universal language

Making cricket accessible is essential if the sport is ever going to expand beyond its traditional hotbeds or If Twenty20 (the shortest version of the game) is ever going to be included in the Olympic Games. The sport’s lexicon and tactics, especially in test cricket and the 50-over format used in the CWC, can be alien to those who have not grown up in a country with a cricketing background.

“Twenty20 has attracted a whole new demographic to cricket,” added Richardson. “It brings cricket to life in a language that they can understand.

“Cricket is not like football. It can be difficult to see who is winning and these stats help you form judgement about who is on top.”

Howstat?

The online match centre provides snippets of information every 20 seconds, updated after each ball is bowled. Fans can see which bowlers and batsmen have been the most effective in Australia and New Zealand, how one team typically performs against different types of opponent and other pieces of historical information.

Analytics has also proved that despite the high scoring seen at the 2015 CWC, bowlers are still incredibly important. Teams who can bowl out their opponent before the 40^th over tend to have a better chance of winning because the scoring rate accelerates in the final ten overs.

It’s not just on-pitch action that’s analysed. The CWC generates a lot of social media interest – especially in India – and the ICC can see how fans are reacting and what they expect. This in turn influences how the ICC engages fans and allows it to improve its approach.

Open approach

But for now, the ICC thinks things are going well. By the penultimate week of the tournament, the official website had attracted 38 million unique visitors and the official app had been downloaded more than three million times.

Richardson said fans appreciate seeing the same information as the team themselves and that stats were just one of a number of ways aimed at improving the fan experience. For example, the CWC has seen the introduction of illuminated wickets and has made the third umpire’s (who is the video referee) audio stream available to television broadcasters to improve transparency.

“If the umpire makes a mistake, people can hear how they’ve come to this decision and people can accept it,” he explained. “In cricket, many good decisions are ruined by poor explanations. We’ve been a bit nervous and the umpires are nervous, but [South Africa v Sri Lanka] was the first time we used it and it went pretty well.”

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