So, I’ve been developing a script to determine the average age of peak performance in cricket, using the ESPN Cricinfo API and with the help from a trusted colleague at the Beeb. I’ve provided an example above, which displays the distribution of age at peak performance for all English batsman in ODI cricket, that I could call from the API. The purpose of this work is to determine an average of when most athletes peak in cricket; which in turn has practical implications for recruitment and team management. In this case, peak performance is defined as the age when the batsman’s batting average (runs/innings) occurred. I have made the the code open source, as I am keen to see what people make of the logic, so please feel free to view what I have developed on Github, as I am always eager to update how this is simulated. The visuals are from ggstatsplot(), which is a beautiful statistical analysis package, which does the hard work in ggplot2 for you.
In weeks to come I’m going to post some findings from this analysis, and how peak performance for batting (and bowling) varies from nation to nation, as well as the potential to include other demographic segments. Hold tight.
Googly Analytics 