Event study - Cricket

Vedant Dwivedi
v_dwivedi@hs.iitr.ac.in

Abstract: We seek to find out whether each ball in a cricket match is an independent event,
or is there a correlation between the results of the previous ball and the one in question. The
study could be extended to study the effects of k previous balls, however, we will focus on
the unity case.

H0: The result of every ball bowled is dependent on the result of the previous ball.

H1: Every ball bowled in a cricket match is an independent event.

There are two ways in my mind as to how model the study, such as to control for the large
number of variables that could possibly effect the result.

P1: Conduct the study for one ODI match, this would include the result of 600 balls, which
should be sufficiently large number of data points.

Step 1: We could estimate the probability of an event happening at any ball using the data
for the 600 balls. We are assuming that these are completely independent events. I’m still on
the fence if the better option would be to model of LR/Logit model which would predict
results on a varied number of factors. Ball speed, bowler ability, batsmen ability etc.

Step 2: We construct a new model which contains R(t-1), i.e. result of the previous ball and
test if our coefficients are significant.

P2: Conduct the study on one specific ground, rather than one match. This could help us
eliminate the variables of strength of teams/players as I think on a large enough model,
these attributes would cluster around a specific value, being randomly distributed around
said value.