India are notorious for producing grounds were the result is strongly impacted by the conditions. It is believed that as the game progresses, the ball swings more, grips more in the wicket and teams find it more difficult to bat second (and fourth) chasing a total. With the T20 World Cup in India fast approaching, I wanted to find out if this is true in the shorter form of the game?

I have investigated 5 of the venues selected to host the competition, analysing results from the 2014 and 2015 Indian Premier League seasons to see if batting first really does give teams the upper hand.

Stadium Facts and Stats

I analysed over 50 results from the 2014 and 2015 IPL seasons and as you can see, the data is inconclusive and does not prove that the side batting first has the advantage. In fact it was only at the Wankhede Stadium and Punjab Cricket ground where the majority of winning teams batted first with 71% and 57% respectively.

I believe this is down to the game being decided by other playing conditions such as whether they are day games or day/night games as well as the strength and form of individual teams. You just have to look at the results at the Feroz Shah Kotla Ground where every team batting second won the game. In this case, the hosting team, Delhi Daredevils have been particularly weak and the only game they happened to win in two seasons was when they batted second.

So as these results proved inconclusive I decided to take at the results of T20 internationals from the past two years making the variable dependent on the team instead of the pitch.

International T20 win breakdown

This data takes into account over 100 games and suggests that the results hinge on various factors as opposed to when the team bats. For example, England possess a healthy win percentage of 60% when batting first compared to 14% batting second. This does not suggest that they are better of batting first as in reality they lost 8 of their 12 games in the last two years.

This would be more down to the strength and experience of their team. Their T20 side has seen several changes with inexperienced players coming in and out the set up. Up until recently English players have also not been permitted to play in the likes of the IPL and Big Bash missing out on the opportunity to play with some of the best players in the world.

Contrast this with Australia who seem to chase successfully with 71%. Their T20 side contains established T20 specialists applying their trade in the IPL and Big Bash and are fully accustomed to the attacking format. This experience has helped develop the likes of Aaron Finch, George Bailey and Glen Maxwell into dynamic batsmen capable of chasing down large totals as well as setting them.

Conclusion

This study shows that T20 results from the past two years do not suggest that it is easier for teams to bat first. So teams should not get sucked into stats and playing conditions but instead focus on playing to their strengths and picking a well balanced batting line up and bowling attack capable of setting high scores and chasing them. A squad that’s capable of playing the new ball, utilising batting power plays, accelerating in the latter overs as well as having a mixture of seamers and spinners capable of taking important wickets.

With the amount of stars and fire power that will be on show at this tournament, one thing we know is that the fans will be in for a spectacle!

It is also important to note some of the limitations of the study. For example data could only be collected from 5 out of the 7 selected venues of the World Cup. This is due to the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium not hosting any IPL games since 2013. This is due to the King Punjab XI playing in different grounds. The Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium is also only used for domestic cricket so the data would not be relevant. Also as the venues also host the knock-out stages of the IPLwe could not take into account home advantage.
It is also difficult to qualify wins and losses. For example a team winning by 50 runs is easier to qualify than a team winning by 5 wickets. One team scores 50 more runs than their opponent but how much is 5 wickets worth?

T20 World Cup - How important is it to bat first?