The Cricket World Cup is one of the most prestigious and highly regarded international cricket tournaments globally. The inaugural tournament took place in 1975. It featured six Test-playing nations at the time: India, Australia, England, New Zealand, Pakistan, and the eventual winners, the West Indies. They were joined by Sri Lanka and a composite team from East Africa.
The 2023 edition of the tournament will showcase ten national teams: Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, and Sri Lanka. Remarkably, the West Indies, two-time champions, will miss out for the first time in their history. Undoubtedly, there’s a first time for everything.
What is the coin toss?
One of the crucial rituals and regulations in the game of cricket is the coin toss. It is regarded as a fair and impartial means of determining which team will gain the advantage of choosing their preferred batting or bowling position. The outcome of the coin toss holds the potential to exert a substantial influence on the strategies. The decision to bat or bowl first is often contingent on factors. They are: pitch conditions, weather conditions, or a combination of both. However, the question remains: to what extent does winning the toss actually affect the outcome of a fixture?
A prevalent topic of discussion among cricket enthusiasts revolves around whether the coin toss represents an outdated aspect of the game. Additionally, there is the inquiry of whether the coin toss genuinely wields a significant influence on the final result of a match.
With the start of the Cricket World Cup edging closer we were able to dive into the numbers dating back to 1975 to see whether winning the coin toss is as important to determining a result as we would imagine. The data was collected via espncricinfo.com which is the world’s leading cricket website and among the top five single-sport websites in the world.
Impact of coin toss in World Cup
Interestingly, the impact of winning the coin toss on the outcome of Cricket World Cup fixtures has shown variation over the years. In the inaugural tournament in 1975, there were eight instances where teams that had lost the toss emerged victorious. In the same World Cup, in seven instances, toss-winning teams also won their matches. A similar pattern persisted in the 1979 edition. Nine wins for teams that lost the toss versus five for those who won it. The years 1987, 1996, 1999, 2003, 2007, and 2011 further highlighted that winning the toss didn't guarantee a clear advantage in winning the fixtures.
However, there were certain years when winning the coin toss did seem to confer a benefit and impact the results. For instance, in 1983, out of 14 fixtures in the tournament, teams that won the coin toss also emerged victorious. In the 1991 tournament, teams that had won the toss eventually became winners in 23 matches. This trend of winning the coin toss favouring teams in terms of match victories was also prominent in the 2015 tournament. Teams that won the toss won 25 games. Meanwhile, 23 fixtures where the toss-winning team did not secure victory.
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent has hosted the Cricket World Cup on three different occasions. The first being in 1987 which was the fourth edition of the Cricket World Cup along with co-hosts Pakistan. This is the first time that India is hosting the tournament all alone. But in the subcontinent, the coin toss-winning side had won 16 fixtures as per the data.
The 1996 tournament, also called the Wills World Cup 1996 after the Wills Navy Cut brand produced by tournament sponsor ITC, was the sixth Cricket World Cup. The last time the tournament was held in the Indian subcontinent was in 2011 when India co-hosted with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh Again, the results favoured the sides that had in fact lost the coin toss. It will be interesting to see if the same pattern of results emerges for the 2023 tournament.
Conclusion
Based on the data gathered from every Cricket World Cup fixture since 1975, it indicates that winning the coin toss doesn’t necessarily offer an advantage when it comes to winning a cricket match. However, it should be noted that whilst the numbers suggest that winning the toss isn't as advantageous as people would expect, there isn’t a seismic gap.
Whilst there were 232 games in total won by teams that hadn’t won the coin toss, 202 were won by teams that had won the toss.
Methodology
We analysed all the up-to-date results from the Cricket World Cup dating back to 1975. The stats were found via ESPNCricinfo which saw all the results analysed to decipher whether winning the coin toss is advantageous in winning an IPL cricket match.
You can find the complete data, here in this sheet.
| Year | Toss Winner Also Won Match | Total Matches | Toss Winner to Win Match Percentage | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 36 | 76 | 47.36 | |
| 2014 | 34 | 60 | 56.67 | |
| 2015 | 29 | 59 | 49.15 | One match in season was abandoned, that's why 59 |
| 2016 | 34 | 60 | 56.67 | |
| 2017 | 34 | 59 | 57.63 | One match in season was abandoned, that's why 59 |
| 2018 | 34 | 60 | 56.67 | |
| 2019 | 36 | 60 | 60.00 | |
| 2020/2021 | 35 | 60 | 58.33 | |
| 2022 | 39 | 74 | 52.7027027 | |
| 2023 | 27 | 74 | 36.48648649 | Not all matches has been played yet |
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