Statsguru: Six charts show India's better showing at Cricket World Cups

India’s track record shows a steady improvement ahead of its 13th One-Day International (ODI) Cricket  World Cup.

It wins more matches and scores more runs than it did when it first lifted the cup in 1983, shows an analysis of data from tracker ESPNcricinfo. Incidentally, this is also the first time in cricketing history that the West Indies, the champion team it once defeated as the underdog 40 years ago, has not qualified. India has been notching up more wins for every loss it experi­e­­nced at the highest ODI cricket tournament. Its win­/loss ratio was close to 1.0 when it first became cham­pion. This has risen to 1.8 by the last tournament, showing a steady improvement with almost every match (chart 1).

A break-down of team performance shows that this has been helped by improved batting. The median Indian batsmen scored fewer runs than their counterparts in other cricketing nations in 1975, when the tournament was first played. The gap is now at its widest, with India pulling significantly ahead of the world even as overall batting averages have moved north (chart 2).

The bowlers have suffered with the game favouring batters. The median bowler gave away more runs in the last decade than they did in the 1970s. India’s bowling average shows a narrower gap with the 1970s, partly because of the relatively poor performance at the time (chart 3).

India’s most successful captains have all led after the turn of the millennium. They won over three matches for each they lost, with M S Dhoni leading the pack (chart 4).



Rohit Sharma may have his task cut out in his maiden outing as ODI World Cup captain, especially since India hasn't won an International Cricket Council (ICC) tournament since the Champions Trophy in 2013.

Despite India’s relative dominance in recent years, it is still Australia which has won the most World Cups at five. It has also picked up a trophy each at the ICC Men's T20 World Cup and the ICC World Test Championship. This takes their total tally in terms of World Cup tournaments to 7 across formats. India has 3 (chart 5).

In addition to the Rs 2,000 crore in advertisement revenue that the tournament is raking in, India’s fans pay a premium to watch their team play. In some cases, the prices are triple the amount for other World Cup teams playing in the same city (chart 6).