On Performance Measurement of Cricketers and Selecting an Optimum Balanced Team

Abstract

A cricket squad that participates in a tournament generally comprises of fifteen players. A balanced squad contains players having different expertise like batting, bowling, wicket keeping, etc. Keeping in view the cricketing requirements, selecting an optimal squad is a difficult decision-making problem. In order to attain that, the study proposes a composite index to measure the performance of cricketers irrespective of their expertise. Then using a binary (0-1) integer programming method a balanced squad of 15 players is selected. To apply the tool to practice, optimum balanced squads are selected from amongst the Indian players who participated in the Indian Premier League (IPL), based on the proposed performance measure for different seasons. The team so selected is compared to the actual Indian team selected for the International Cricket Council (ICC) Twenty20 World Cups following the IPLs in the year 2009, 2010 and 2012. It is seen that the actual Indian team is not much variant to the optimal squad of ICC Twenty20 World Cup 2012 but things are different during the years 2009 and 2010. The optimization technique discussed in this study can be helpful for the balanced team selection of other team sports as well.