Analytics is playing a major role in making correct decisions by taking data into consideration. In this blog, I want to discuss how analytics is changing the World of sports. Analytics in sports is divided into three broad areas:-
- Analytics of player and game performance.
- Business analytics in sports.
- Player’s injury and health analytics.
These three areas are very large in terms of their applications. When we talk about analytics of player and game performance, the focus will be on three decisions that a team needs to take which are, choosing the best players for a team, fielding the best possible team on a given day and taking the best possible decisions on the ground. Second crucial application in sports will be application of business. It consist of analytics for fan loyalty analysis, ticket pricing, fan commitment and social media. The third major application in sports is to predict the injury of the players in advance so that substitutes can be planned earlier.
So, the major game that I have taken in this blog is: CRICKET.
Analytics is playing a very major role in cricket. Cricket is a game where lots of data is produced with every game. So, Analysts can play with that data and can come up with many observations. I’ll discuss an example here to specify the importance of player and game performance analytics in the field of cricket. It covers the growth of Indian cricket team to number one position in test rankings when they were just above West Indies (rank 7) in test rankings.
When M.S Dhoni took India’s captaincy he has a vision to make the Indian team number one in test rankings. Data has played a big role in achieving their vision. They had analyzed the teams that they need to play with and analyzed opposition team’s strengths and shortcomings through precise analysis of their scoring order and pattern, how they scored their runs, when they were sensitive during innings. They analyze the players who are having the proficiency to beat those competitor in different conditions. They made sure that they had a clear program for each session, each day. All these things have been done with the help of data analytics. So, this example is sufficient to show the power of analytics in cricket.
Now Analytics is also being occupied by IPL. Recently, KKR has taken the help of SAP during player auctions to choose the best player for its team.
So, we have seen how the right application of analytics and impressive power of data can rise outcomes in the sporting field. To be sure, sporting achievement will always trust on the invincible human spirit to drive higher, faster and stronger. So, the application of data driven techniques and strategy of analytics will bridge the gap between the cup and the lip.