Investigating the Role of Opening Partners While Chasing on the Outcome of Twenty20 Cricket Matches

Abstract

In cricket, irrespective of the format of the game, batting always happens in pairs. The two batsmen who bat together are called as batting partners. The pair of batsmen who come to bat at the beginning of any innings are called opening batsmen or opening partners. In Twenty20 cricket, the opening partners must start their innings with a definite strategy. In one hand, they have the advantage of only two fielders outside the 30-yard circle for the first six overs (technically called as the powerplay overs), and so both openers are expected to play high scoring shots and attempt to score runs quickly. On the other hand, the odds against them are the ball is new, so is the pitch and the bowlers are fresh and energetic. When any one of the opening batsmen loses his wicket, the partnership comes to an end. This study tries to figure out the influence of the opening partnership of the second innings on the outcome of Twenty20 matches. Pressure Index (developed by earlier researchers), effects of venue or ground and target score are used as explanatory variables in the logistic regression model to check if the performance of opening partnership influences the outcome of Twenty20 matches along with other variables. The data used for the exercise is from Twenty20 international cricket matches played within the period January 2012 to June 2018. The study finds that opening partnership while chasing is a significant factor in deciding the match outcome during the run chase for the said dataset. Also, the best opening batting partners have been identified.