Reflections from a workshop on cricket analytics

I was privileged to be a part of a workshop on performance and video analytics in Cricket, from none other than Prasanna Agoram, a.k.a Pdogg, widely renown as Cricket South Africa’s analyst for over a decade.

For those who are new to hearing analytics in Cricket,

Cricket analytics at a broad level is about making sense of numbers but with a deep domain expertise in Cricket, with peripheries along biomechanics (used to analyse videos of players in action) and man management (how to effectively marry what the data tells and what resources the team can put out on the field).

It has largely remained a black box for many cricket enthusiasts, for there seemed to be not many answers to “who is that techie sitting with a laptop in the pavilion?” . This course was devised to break that myth and more, give a deeper look into what it takes to be that persona of a cricket analyst, the guts, glory and gore of a role that goes largely unnoticed, but is very much an integral part of cricket strategy these days.

On a random evening, I was scrolling through my twitter feed, when I saw that the legend had opened up applications to a course where he would be sharing his knowledge over 2 decades in the field of cricket analytics. To be honest, I never really expected to make the cut, especially when I read that there were over 4000 applicants.

Fast forward to the workshop weekend, I was going into it with a blank mind and a tumultuous week behind me on a personal front. I decided to take each day as it came, but as soon as I tuned into the first hour, I was convinced I had taken a good step forward, thanks to Prasanna’s infectious enthusiasm blended with intelligent cricket stratagems.

I can’t delve much into what exactly was shared as part of the workshop, but from an eagle eye, am reflecting a few things which participants applying to the next batch can expect:

1. What are some key facets of strategy that can be planned using data in Cricket. Through the workshop, Pdogg kept teasing us with multiple case studies on how they plotted the downfall of opposition, and helped those under his wings prepare better for the opposition.
2. When have plans worked and when have they not. It needs humility, maturity and clarity in thought to be able to narrate both sides of the coin, and thats exactly what Pdogg did, when he shared some instances where the plans had not borne fruit.
3. Emotional reflections from PDogg’s journey: The man you might know, the story which you don’t
4. Infectious enthusiasm from PDogg trickling onto fellow participants, leading to a riveting QnA session. The participants were at their best element, posing googlies which Pdogg kept negating perfectly to remain unbeaten.

Little did we know, that the collective learnings of the group will increase profoundly.

Little did we know that we will end up over running the schedule, but not feel a tiny bit tired.

Little do we know what in Pdogg’s words is to “Burn your passion”!!!

Cheers,

Kishan