Individual and team performance in cricket

Advancements in technology have recently allowed us to collect and analyse large-scale fine-grained data about human performance, drastically changing the way we approach sports. Here, we provide the first comprehensive analysis of individual and team performance in One-Day International cricket, one of the most popular sports in the world. We investigate temporal patterns of individual success by quantifying the location of the best performance of a player and find that they can happen at any time in their career, surrounded by a burst of comparable top performances. Our analysis shows that long-term performance can be predicted from early observations and that temporary exclusions of players from teams are often due to declining performances but are also associated with strong comebacks. By computing the duration of streaks of winning performances compared to random expectations, we demonstrate that teams win and lose matches consecutively. We define the contributions of specialists such as openers, all-rounders and wicket-keepers and show that a balanced performance from multiple individuals is required to ensure team success. Finally, we measure how transitioning to captaincy in the team improves the performance of batsmen, but not that of bowlers. Our work emphasizes how individual endeavours and team dynamics interconnect and influence collective outcomes in sports.