ISSS608 2017-18 T1 Group6 Visualisations

Abstract

Understanding team dynamics in sports is never easy. In a game of Cricket, it’s even harder because teams show so many ups and downs on the cricket field each time they come out to play, its hard to say that there is a one-stop solution that can be implemented on all players for all formats of the game. To overcome this problem, we have conducted an exploratory data analysis to identify patterns in players (batsman and bowlers) and the teams they have been a part of through a medium of visualization to better throw light on their performances over the past 10 seasons (2008-18). Through various comparisons between batsman, bowlers, and team performances, we have highlighted various anomalies, validated certain presumptions, and created a visualization dashboard that, if used, would allow team managers to buy better players for upcoming seasons of the IPL.

Introduction

The Indian Premier League is a professional Twenty20 cricket league in India contested during April and May of every year by teams representing Indian cities and some states. It is a tournament that started in 2008 and has ever since continued to be in action for the past 10 years. In the game of Twenty20 Cricket, each team gets to bat 20 overs. While one team bats, the other team bowls and fields. The purpose of the game is for the team batting second to score one more run than the team that batted first, within the timeline of 20 overs and without losing 10 wickets. Each over consists of 6 legitimate balls thrown down at the batsman and the batsman are expected to score runs of each ball thrown at them. When a bowler is bowling at the batsman facing him, the rest of the players in the bowler’s team are expected to stop the ball and the batsman from scoring runs.