IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/econjl/v119y2009i534p1-23.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Rational Adversaries? Evidence from Randomised Trials in One Day Cricket

Author

Listed:
  • V. Bhaskar

Abstract

In cricket, the right to make an important strategic decision (bat first or field first) is assigned via a coin toss. I use these ‘randomised trials’ to examine the consistency of choices made by teams with strictly opposed preferences and the effects of these choices upon the outcomes in the game. I find significant evidence of inconsistency, with teams often agreeing on who is to bat first. Estimated treatment effects show that choices are often poorly made and reduce the probability of the team winning, a particularly surprising finding given the intensely competitive environment and opportunities for learning.

Suggested Citation

  • V. Bhaskar, 2009. "Rational Adversaries? Evidence from Randomised Trials in One Day Cricket," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(534), pages 1-23, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:econjl:v:119:y:2009:i:534:p:1-23
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0297.2008.02203.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0297.2008.02203.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1468-0297.2008.02203.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mark Walker & John Wooders, 2001. "Minimax Play at Wimbledon," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1521-1538, December.
    2. Adam Brandenburger & Ben Polak, 1996. "When Managers Cover Their Posteriors: Making the Decisions the Market Wants to See," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 27(3), pages 523-541, Autumn.
    3. P.-A. Chiappori, 2002. "Testing Mixed-Strategy Equilibria When Players Are Heterogeneous: The Case of Penalty Kicks in Soccer," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 1138-1151, September.
    4. Ehrenberg, Ronald G & Bognanno, Michael L, 1990. "Do Tournaments Have Incentive Effects?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(6), pages 1307-1324, December.
    5. Morris, Stephen, 1995. "The Common Prior Assumption in Economic Theory," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(2), pages 227-253, October.
    6. David Romer, 2006. "Do Firms Maximize? Evidence from Professional Football," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(2), pages 340-365, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. McGinn Eamon, 2013. "The effect of batting during the evening in cricket," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 9(2), pages 141-150, June.
    2. Praveen Puram & Soumya Roy & Deepak Srivastav & Anand Gurumurthy, 2023. "Understanding the effect of contextual factors and decision making on team performance in Twenty20 cricket: an interpretable machine learning approach," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 325(1), pages 261-288, June.
    3. González-Díaz, Julio & Palacios-Huerta, Ignacio, 2016. "Cognitive performance in competitive environments: Evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 40-52.
    4. Kassis, Mark & Schmidt, Sascha L. & Schreyer, Dominik & Sutter, Matthias, 2021. "Psychological pressure and the right to determine the moves in dynamic tournaments – evidence from a natural field experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 278-287.
    5. Jose Apesteguia & Ignacio Palacios-Huerta, 2010. "Psychological Pressure in Competitive Environments: Evidence from a Randomized Natural Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 2548-2564, December.
    6. Colin Cannonier & Bibhudutta Panda & Sudipta Sarangi, 2015. "20-Over Versus 50-Over Cricket," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 16(7), pages 760-783, October.
    7. Michael Allgrunn & Christopher Douglas & Sebastian Wai, 2024. "Optimal Timeout Choices in Clutch Situations in the NBA," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 25(2), pages 217-230, February.
    8. Brian Goff & Stephen L. Locke, 2019. "Revisiting Romer: Digging Deeper Into Influences on NFL Managerial Decisions," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(5), pages 671-689, June.
    9. Chowdhury, Subhasish M. & Jewell, Sarah & Singleton, Carl, 2024. "Can awareness reduce (and reverse) identity-driven bias in judgement? Evidence from international cricket," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 226(C).
    10. Sebastian Bervoets & Bruno Decreuse & Mathieu Faure, 2014. "A Renewed Analysis of Cheating in Contests: Theory and Evidence from Recovery Doping," AMSE Working Papers 1441, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France, revised Jun 2015.
    11. Sarah Jewell & James Reade, 2014. "On Fixing International Cricket Matches," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2014-08, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    12. Sarah Jewell & J. James Reade & Carl Singleton, 2020. "It's Just Not Cricket: The Uncontested Toss and the Gentleman's Game," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2020-10, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    13. Sudipta Sarangi & Emre Unlu, 2011. "Key Players and Key Groups in Teams," Departmental Working Papers 2011-10, Department of Economics, Louisiana State University.
    14. Abhinav Sacheti & Ian Gregory-Smith & David Paton, 2016. "Managerial Decision Making Under Uncertainty," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 17(1), pages 44-63, January.
    15. Mr. Shekhar Aiyar & Mr. Rodney Ramcharan, 2010. "What Can International Cricket Teach Us About the Role of Luck in Labor Markets?," IMF Working Papers 2010/225, International Monetary Fund.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Klaassen, Franc J.G.M. & Magnus, Jan R., 2009. "The efficiency of top agents: An analysis through service strategy in tennis," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 148(1), pages 72-85, January.
    2. Emara, Noha & Owens, David & Smith, John & Wilmer, Lisa, 2017. "Serial correlation in National Football League play calling and its effects on outcomes," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 125-132.
    3. Klaassen, F.J.G.M. & Magnus, J.R., 2006. "Are Economic Agents Successful Optimizers? An Analysis Through Strategy in Tennis," Other publications TiSEM 73e12d86-8fe4-4a87-9181-7, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    4. Kenneth Kovash & Steven D. Levitt, 2009. "Professionals Do Not Play Minimax: Evidence from Major League Baseball and the National Football League," NBER Working Papers 15347, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Axel Anderson & Jeremy Rosen & John Rust & Kin-Ping Wong, 2021. "Disequilibrium Play in Tennis," Working Papers gueconwpa~21-21-07, Georgetown University, Department of Economics.
    6. Sebastian Bervoets & Bruno Decreuse & Mathieu Faure, 2014. "A Renewed Analysis of Cheating in Contests: Theory and Evidence from Recovery Doping," AMSE Working Papers 1441, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France, revised Jun 2015.
    7. Schläpfer, Alain, 2024. "Cross-cultural differences in retaliation: Evidence from the soccer field," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 223(C), pages 216-233.
    8. Vincenzo Scoppa, 2008. "Are subjective evaluations biased by social factors or connections? An econometric analysis of soccer referee decisions," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 123-140, August.
    9. Franc J.G.M. Klaasen & Jan R. Magnus, 2006. "Are Economic Agents Successful Optimizers? An Analysis through Service Strategy in Tennis," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 06-048/2, Tinbergen Institute.
    10. Paserman, M. Daniele, 2023. "Gender Differences in Performance in Competitive Environments? Evidence from Professional Tennis Players," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 590-609.
    11. V. Bhaskar, 2004. "Rational Adversaries? Evidence from Randomized Trials in the Game of Cricket," Levine's Working Paper Archive 122247000000000163, David K. Levine.
    12. David Romer, 2002. "It's Fourth Down and What Does the Bellman Equation Say? A Dynamic Programming Analysis of Football Strategy," NBER Working Papers 9024, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Brian Goff & Stephen L. Locke, 2019. "Revisiting Romer: Digging Deeper Into Influences on NFL Managerial Decisions," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(5), pages 671-689, June.
    14. Theodore L. Turocy, 2012. "An inspection game model of the stolen base in baseball: A theory of theft," University of East Anglia Applied and Financial Economics Working Paper Series 032, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    15. Garicano, Luis & Palacios-Huerta, Ignacio, 2005. "Sabotage in Tournaments: Making the Beautiful Game a Bit Less Beautiful," CEPR Discussion Papers 5231, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Pedro Garcia-del-Barrio & Stefan Szymanski, 2009. "Goal! Profit Maximization Versus Win Maximization in Soccer," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 34(1), pages 45-68, February.
    17. Akifumi Kijima & Koji Kadota & Keiko Yokoyama & Motoki Okumura & Hiroo Suzuki & R C Schmidt & Yuji Yamamoto, 2012. "Switching Dynamics in an Interpersonal Competition Brings about “Deadlock” Synchronization of Players," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(11), pages 1-10, November.
    18. Isabelle Brocas & Juan D. Carrillo, 2004. "Do the “Three-Point Victory†and “Golden Goal†Rules Make Soccer More Exciting?," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 5(2), pages 169-185, May.
    19. Isabelle Brocas & Juan D. Carrillo, 2022. "The development of randomization and deceptive behavior in mixed strategy games," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(2), pages 825-862, May.
    20. Katja Seim & Michael Sinkinson, 2016. "Mixed pricing in online marketplaces," Quantitative Marketing and Economics (QME), Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 129-155, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:econjl:v:119:y:2009:i:534:p:1-23. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/resssea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.