T20 wickets analysis

In his latest column, our expert analyzes the pattern of falling of wickets in the shortest format of the gentleman’s game.

I was fascinated by the pattern of number of wickets falling in T20 matches.  I wanted to know whether there is a normal distribution between the whole range of 0 to 20 wickets or the distribution pattern has shifted. It was a fascinating exercise and the results are quite illuminating.

This covers up to match # 185, the second match between Australia and Pakistan which was played on 6 July. 3 matches were washed out.

The results did not surprise me. Since the requirement is to score runs quickly, wickets have to be sacrificed and this is shown up in the results. The lowest number of wickets to fall in a match is 6 (MtId 57: Australia 97/3 in 11, West Indies 102/3 in 9.1). There has been only one such occurrence. At the other end there has been only one instance of all 20 wickets falling in a match (MtId 156: Australia 191 a.o., Pakistan 157 a.o.).

There has been a normal distribution between wickets 6 and 20. The average number of wickets per match is 13.2. The median value is around 12.9. Both the values are either side of 13 wickets per match which seems to be a key figure in T20 matches.

Note also the number of balls per wicket. A wicket falls every three overs or so. Obviously a fair proportion of these wickets would have fallen between overs 11 and 20 (a later analysis might prove/disprove this statement).

The tabular data in graphical form confirms our findings that the distribution is normal between overs 6 and 20 and the mean and median occur around over 13 or so. It is of interesting to note that the modal (highest frequency) distribution is at 15 wickets. The other interesting fact is that only once in 182 matches have all 20 wickets fallen. One reason could be that the weaker teams do not play many T20 matches against stronger teams.

I can do another analysis on the number of wickets which have fallen in either innings, on whether the number of wickets fallen has any correlation with the result and relate the wickets fallen to the team strength and so on. For the time being, let me close it here with a promise that this is not the last we have seen of this fascinating topic.