30 Jun / 2017(465).. Game will evolve when margin of wins is high between two equally strong teams.

I think game of any sport will evolve when margin of wins is high between  two teams that are equally strong or have less gap in their skills –

As Zimbabwe created history by winning their first ever ODI bilateral series in Sri Lanka I take a look at margin of wins in one day cricket. In last few years there has been constant rise in margin of wins in this format.

I think game is evolving when margin of win is increasing!.

The just concluded Zimbabwe in Sri Lanka 5  ODI series was a great example how teams decides how they want to win their game. In this series these two teams were comfortable chasing any target.

In the 5 matches series teams that batted second won all the games, and apart from last game(series decider) all four had big margin of wins.  It had three wins with > 5 wickets to spare, and two had > 10 overs remaining.

Hence i took the opportunity to look into margin of wins in one day cricket since World Cup 2015 .

Using different values i have categorically defined margin of wins.

1) Winning by Margin of Runs -50 being the lowest run for this category. Their sub category are

a) 50 plus runs

b) 100 plus runs

c) 150 plus runs

d) 200 plus runs

e) 250 plus runs

2) Winning by wickets – 5 wickets being the lowest wicket for this category. Their sub category are

a) 5 wkts

b)6 wkts

c) 7 wkts

d) 8 wkts

e) 9 wkts

f) 10 wkts

3 ) Winning with overs to spare – 10 being the minimum No. of overs for this category. Their sub category are

a) 10 plus overs

b) 15 plus overs

c) 20 plus overs

d) 25 plus overs

e) 30 plus overs

f) 35 plus overs

Interestingly from my findings margin of wins has increased regularly since WC 2015. In 241 matches(includes the concluded SL v Zim series)

• 29.88% of matches were won with 50 plus runs
• 8.30 % of them with 7 plus wickets
• 24.07 % with 10 plus overs remaining

(including matches that had Duckworth Lewis method applied)

I also took the liberty to create a point system for them –

I used a simple method of giving only 1 point for wins and various category (including margin of wins)of wins.   I don’t give points for tied and abandoned games.

1 ) 1 point for win

2) 1 point for away win

3) 1 point for win in sub-continent

4) 1 point for each various margin of wins

Below is year-wise list of various margin of wins in one day cricket. Starting from 2013. As one can clearly observe there is constant rise in margin of runs, steep rise in wickets in hand and overs remaining. Below figures are in percentile.  

All data is updated at end of Zimbabwe in Sri Lanka ODI series July 2017.