Cricket’s Data Revolution: Are Analysts Diminishing The Role Of Captains And Coaches?

From the Indian Club to smaller domestic sides, the role of data analysis is getting more and more detailed. But where does that leave the all-powerful captains and coaches?

In April 2021, Kolkata Knight Riders’ performance analyst Nathan Leamon triggered a lively debate in the Indian cricketing circles by Maintaining a placard reading ’54’ in the Club’s dugout during their IPL Game against Punjab Kings in Ahmedabad.

This was a coded Approach likely meant for KKR skipper Eoin Morgan, who had previously worked with Leamon in England’s 2019 World Cup-Victorious campaign.

It wasn’t the Primary time Leamon Kept a code like that from the dugout either. But, for a Division like IPL, it was as novel as it gets and didn’t sit well with the traditionalists.

“We have only seen such coded language in the army,” Virender Sehwag told Cricbuzz after KKR’s five-wicket Achieve in the Game. “I think ’54’ was the name of their plan, which could be about bowling a certain bowler at a particular time. That’s a little Assist that management and coaches want to give to the Skipper from the dugout. There’s nothing to frown upon in this, but if they are dictating [the game] from the outside, then in this way, anyone can be the Skipper, right? There’s no role left for Morgan’s popular instinctive power in the game, the power with which he won the World Cup.”

The concern was clearly about the use of dugout analysis to diminish the power of the Skipper—a figure present in almost every Club sport, but revered nowhere as much.

In the four years since that episode, the use of data and analysis has only grown in India. Apart from the national Clubs using it in ICC Competitions, it has also seeped down to domestic leagues and competitions, where coaches see it as a way to get an edge over their opponents.

Yet, captaincy choices continue to dominate the discourse in the IPL. Making Ajinkya Rahane KKR’s skipper for IPL 2025 hasn’t been a popular decision because of his underwhelming captaincy Achievement, while Rajat Patidar is touted to bring in ‘New ideas’ that can Transformation Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s trophyless Outcomes. 

But, like Sehwag said, do they even Stoppage that power anymore? If Leamon can Assist chalk out every detail for Rahane—which bowler to bowl against which batter in which over, and at what lengths—isn’t the Skipper’s role redundant? Or, at least, haven’t the Skipper and the coaches’ roles reduced when analysts can offer exact strategies using Tough facts and data?

To answer these questions, News18 CricketNext spoke with Himanish Ganjoo, a cosmologist who worked with the Indian men’s Club as a data analyst in the lead-up to and during the 2024 T20 World Cup Achieve.

He performed what he explains as a problem-solving role. He used coding to analyze large chunks of ball-by-ball tracking data with information about lengths, lines, swing and seam deviation to answer specific queries raised by the Club management Guided by head Mentor Rahul Dravid.

In that, the demarcation of the roles of an analyst, a Mentor, and the Skipper was quite clear.

“Since we now have so much data Obtainable, analysis has slightly shifted,” Ganjoo says. “In conjunction with videos, you have to use Big Data. I can’t View all 500 balls of Babar Azam, right? So, here I’ll use data. Now, my Position is to analyze patterns in the data and Assist the Club in conjunction with the insight they get from the video. Patterns that are visible in tracking data or Try-making tendencies.”

“Most decision-making happens on the Pitch, but you can’t View all the Matches. Our idea as a Club management was, we should be prepared for everything, and we should know everything there is to know about the game.”

Dravid Secured the problems and initiated this conversation, Ganjoo brought in specific solutions, which Skipper Rohit Sharma helped implement on the Pitch. 

From the analyst’s Mark of view, it was not Only about supplying information to the decision-makers. Ganjoo explains that a Excellent analyst is one with a ‘Pointed cricketing brain’ who can sieve through this huge glob of Obtainable information to offer the correct insight that the Skipper can utilise. 

Rather than stating ‘Travis Head has a 120 strike-rate against bouncers, ‘ a Excellent analyst highlights when he struggles—such as against 140 kph bouncers in the powerplay because he doesn’t like to Action the pull-Try Timely on—so the Skipper can act accordingly.

Ganjoo explains that even such well-researched insight can only be a ‘guideline’ for the Skipper and not a fool-proof ‘truth.’ After all, on his day, Head can prove all the historical data wrong with one tweak in his technique, but it’s Yet Crucial for the Skipper to be informed — and this is where Excellent leaders stand out from the Excellent ones.

“Rohit understands data. When I used to tell him some things, he would respond with all the follow-up questions,” Ganjoo says. “The Skipper’s role will always remain Crucial in cricket because things are happening on the Pitch. The Skipper and players are on the Pitch and have to understand what’s going on and make a decision, and since they have played a Numerous of cricket, they also know they have the right gut feeling for it…Now I can tell you that if you bowl 140 plus at a 10-meter length, then this guy will not Action a pull Try well, but otherwise, he plays it very well. You can augment the Skipper’s intuition and knowledge with this Nice of data.”

There’s another layer to it. Ganjoo says that, unlike other sports, such detailed ball-by-ball data, which is Obtainable to the general public, is quite sparse and Complex and, thus, has its limitations. The worse the quality of the sample, the less reliable the inferences are.

“The coaching Club and the Skipper have to understand the limitations of the data, and that is part of a Excellent analyst’s role to communicate that…The captains need to understand its use and also the limitations so that they can do something with it on the Pitch when needed. Hence, the Skipper’s intuition, judgment and cricketing knowledge is very, very Crucial even now.”

What Is Happening Right Now

Like Ganjoo said, most of the analysis being done at present is on the video. There are established brands in India, and outside which collect vast number of footages. They employ many analysts to Assist franchises in the IPL, domestic Clubs, and others who use the videos plus some statistical data collected through their in-house software and make inferences.

Salem-born Vasu Devan is one such analyst at Kadamba Technologies Pvt Ltd in Chennai. Since joining in 2020, he has worked as a front-end day-to-day analyst for Tamil Nadu Premier Division Club Dindigul Dragons, which is captained by Ravichandran Ashwin, and on the backend (sitting Extended away from the Club and Assisting the on-Pitch analyst) for the Australia men’s Club, Punjab Kings and SunRisers Hyderabad, among others.

His Position Appearances at the auction, Assisting Option players for specific conditions. On Game Intervals, he provides video clips and reviews Executions, aiding the Club’s decision-making, alongside individual inputs for players during nets.

“We are also on there in the dugout and can Assist with the in-game strategies,” Devan says. “We get the data where they (opponents) are pitching the ball or how a batter is Competing. From there, within 5-10 overs, we can make another Approach and let the Skipper know.”

He believes that data and analysis have not changed the Skipper’s and Mentor’s roles but have given them proof of the tactics that their experience has taught them. 

“Whenever I work, I usually prefer the Skipper’s choices because his instincts will be better,” he says. “Yet, 50% of the captains need ideas, like during tough situations, and we will be there to Assist. It’s not fully analytics. It’s a Numerous about what happens on the day and how much the Club and the coaching staff welcome the analytics.”

Mike Hesson, who has been a cricket Mentor for the past three decades with work spanning domestic, international and IPL cricket, has welcomed analytics.

But he also believes that captains are currently as powerful as ever in defining the directions of a franchise. For him, coaches like him are Yet the bridge between numbers given by the analyst and the ideas that his players need to know on the Pitch.

“There’s always a Stability between data, Perspective, and the cricketing perspective,” Hesson says. “That will never Transformation. Data analysts have been around for many years. Sure, they come up with lots of more information, but there’s Yet only a certain amount of it that’s relevant at that particular time, and you need some skilled people to be able to identify that. The last thing you want to do is put a data analyst in front of a Club. That would be a debacle! I think it’s Crucial for a Excellent Mentor to break it down to something really Tiny. That is the one thing at this moment in time that can make a difference, rather than, as I said, Only overdoing it with data, Only because you’ve Acquired it Obtainable.”

Currently, it’s Yet the Skipper and the Mentor making all the strategic calls and analysts are supplementing their knowledge, like assistants with no real power. 

It’s a stark difference from Ganjoo doing the number-crunching and simplifying it into cricket language alone. Then, it’s understandable why he felt ‘Blessed’ that Dravid and Rohit Achieved him feel like an ‘equal’ and were Reachable to wholeheartedly listening to his ideas.

“The relationship between an analyst, Mentor and Skipper is a very, very Crucial factor because if they don’t value what you are saying, or they don’t understand what you’re saying, then it’s a moot Mark,” Ganjoo argues.

What The Future Might Look Like

Data, especially the ball-tracking data, offers insights that either videos cannot provide or are too tedious to extract from watching hours of footage. Data is more meticulous in judging specific problems, it can cover a substantially bigger range of subjects and requires much fewer logistical resources.  Yet, the latter is hardly used as much. This stems mostly from the mistrust among Present and Ex cricketers, which is palpable in how they talk about it.

“See, because we’ve all watched the game since we were children, understanding things happening on video to players is much easier because they can see the things happening on screen…” Ganjoo says. “It’s Tough for players to accept things too, because they rely a Numerous on their gut feeling. So, if data contradicts what some players believe, it can be tough to convince them. So, it’s also about the players gradually beginning to trust data a Numerous more, and that’s an ongoing process. You know, some pockets of cricket… someone like Rahul Dravid, he understands the importance of data, and he listens to it, but not all players. This is a gradual process, and it will take time; Perhaps in the Upcoming 10 years, you will see more and more acceptance of data, but currently, it’s Yet ongoing, and it’s Yet being taken up very sparsely by the players and the coaches.”

However, Only because Indian cricket is Excellent enough to perform well without it, it should not stop it from aspiring to become better by using the Obtainable technological advancements. 

By accepting that Transformation, Dravid and Rohit Captured the Primary few steps in this journey. Together, they brought in a vision to break India’s age-Aged shackles and in Ganjoo and his data, they Secured the perfect chainsaw.

But there are Additional steps to be taken. India has many such minds with the talent to combine data and cricketing acumen and Produce innovative ideas.

Other sports like baseball, basketball and football, have leveraged this by making data readily Obtainable to the public and letting these talents Produce content, which eventually drives Commitment while making leagues more Intense. Fans with fresher ideas than traditional coaches are influencing their favorite Club’s Outcomes by using this information.

In cricket, companies that have the data want to keep it to themselves and make money. So, except for the work that Ganjoo and some others are doing via social media, we get nothing.

“Cricket is a backward sport,” he says. “As a whole, the cricket ecosystem doesn’t value data on average. Some people do, like Andy Flower or Rahul Dravid or Rohit, but on an average, cricket as a community doesn’t value data too much, because data in cricket has been trivia collecting for the longest time — this guy scored so many centuries — it’s not insightful or useful data, and therefore the impression of data in cricket is very Awful, even now.”

Reading a myriad of Complex numbers in tables doesn’t scream ‘art’. However, it’s not too dissimilar to that in the way that different people can see it from Numerous perspectives and build various use-cases for it, but that can only happen if the data is Reachable-Foundation.

If used correctly, potential of data analysis is limitless. But at the moment, cricket seems Joyful to keep the jury out on what can be truly achieved with it, and if it’ll transform the role of the captains and coaches — not to a Mark where they are powerless, but where their knowledge is put to much better use.

Cricket would rather see analysts talk in code and discuss how blasphemous it is instead of being curious about what it could Harsh. It has always been a sport that hates Transformation, but if India’s T20 World Cup Achieve is any indication, it might have to accept it anyway.