As millions of controversies, scandals and question arose in this 2023 ODI world cup. we do a statistical analysis – trying to figures out the truth behind the noise.




As the 2023 world cup ended
It was called as the dullest
Drabbest
Driest affair

hundreds and thousands of decrying articles posted online creating outcry and outrage


today we are gone find if it was
Factually
Statistically
True


Going over each and every world cup match to be ever played. From 1975 to 2011 all the way up to the current one




The first accusation -


This world cup was one sided
This quandary was broken down into 2 questions


Number 1
How many close matches were actually there in past world cups
And number 2
How many times had underdogs created upsets?


looking at the scorecard isn’t enough.’


The flow of the match had to be taken into account too.
Taking an example of Australia Afghanistan match of this year.


The scorecard looked simply


But then maxwell pulled of a thrilling miracle ending the match with a double century.




So, a detailed deep dive finally revealed that
the 1987 world cup
is the king
As far as close matches went


A 51%


With this one falling at 10.6%


That ranks 9th out of 13


The worst rated is the
2007 world cup


Being rated as the worst world cup ever
across many crickets’ polls


the second parameter
The underdogs one
And that is where this world cup takes the cake
surprisingly


A total of 10.6% of all matches
Had the underdogs winning
Afghanistan Netherlands double punch


Making this world cup a underdogs paradise


The next on the list is the Sri Lankan ascendence of 1996
Followed by the Bangladesh Ireland combo of 2007


On the other end we have the 1987 juggernaut
It Didn't have any underdogs winning




So, by statistic it’s the 2003 one that should be the worst


The other big one was


Win the toss - win the match
Or chase and win the match
Or bat first and win the match
So, we asked the question –
How many matches did teams win
After winning the toss


Here this world cup had the
The second worst result - ever


38% match win rate
This would mean that winning the toss did not matter


the other question
Batting first or fielding first


a better result in this world cup


A near 50 50 percent split


Normally the right calls increase as the world cup goes along


teams understood the pitch behavior


but this time in the stadiums that were the most lopsided
captains failed to choose the right option till the end




Now
Historically in the entire Asia and middle east region


Games were are toss dependent


With matches starting in evening
with dew and small boundaries


in fact in the 2021 t20 world cup
winning the toss and chasing
had seen
71.8win rate
And in the 2016 one - 58.8%


But that’s true only for t20s


In ODI's


India has the worst toss win match win %


A mere 35.6%




This percentage in the current world cup was
34.7


The lowest after 1987.


Then We have the barren wasteland of Indian stadiums


Apparently, the matches were being played in silence
With attendance a historic record low on the opening night


But then within 10 days


This world cup had beat the attendance of the past two world cups


Everyone forgot the fact that the shri Narendra Modi stadium even with only 1/4th of its capacity


Is enough to fill out most of the cricket stadiums in the world


For viewership
Just from the Disney+ hotstar viewership data
The consumption and average time spent on TV was
10 and 12 percent higher than the last world cup


Even Without the final group matches or knockouts taken into account


Facebook had 12 billion video views on ICCs feed,
four times that of 2019


While Economic times estimated
ICC earning close to $150 million from this event


By its end
this World Cup was estimated to give a Rs 13,000-20,000 crore boost to the economy,


As compared to the 3600 crores in the 2019 one.
This world cup has done everything that it had set out to do


Even the initial news of cancelling ODI events
Gone away with the wind.
And yet after such a tumultuous world cup


After such a heartbreaking – anti climactic ending


It feels natural to question how things are turning out this way
How the best team of the past decade


Has failed time and again in ICC events


How exactly do we snatch failure for the jaws of victory


But as I myself am not able to answer any of these questions – the critics and commentators out there better suited for that particular job


I will simply take solace in the fact that


We have been able to create a crate full of memories from this world cup.




#cricket #analysis #statistics