Jadhav &Raizada (2020): Competitive balance of women in Nov 2020 Vol. 23 Issue 17

Survey of Competitive Balance of Women’s Cricket Competition

Sanika Jadhav1andShiny Raizada2*

1Student, MBA, 2Assistant Professor, Symbiosis School of Sciences, Symbiosis International (Deemed University), Pune, Maharashtra, India

*Corresponding author:[email protected] (Raizada)

Abstract Background:Competitive balance is an important factor which involves teams that have an equal of strengths and weaknesses in the league to keep the predictability of the outcome uncertain and cause the league to be exciting. The study aimed at examining the trends of competitive balance for women’s Domestic One Day Cricket leagues a period of five years starting from 2015 to 2019.Methods: To evaluate the competitive balance of these domestic leagues the five-club concentration ratio (C5) and C5 index of competitive balance (C5ICB) were used. C5ICB is a more rational index to assess the competitive balance of a particular league.Conclusion:Using the C5ICB index, the results exhibited the highest and lowest competitive balance between countries which were (107.52), (124.86), (142.22) and India (167.23).

Keywords: Competitive Balance, C5 ratio, C5ICB, One day Cricket, Women’s cricket

How to cite this article: Jadhav S, Raizada S (2020): Survey of competitive balance of women’s cricket competition, Ann Trop Med & Public Health; 23(S17): SP231765. DOI: http://doi.org/10.36295/ASRO.2020.231765

1.Introduction:

The game of Cricket is a British originated game competed between two teams consisting of eleven players each. The game abides by various units such as , , and wicket-keeping(1). Cricket basically involves three formats namely: Twenty-20, (ODI) and . In and One Day International cricket, the batsmen aim at scoring as many runs as possible since it is a limited overs format while in Test Cricket, they aim at building a partnership and staying at the crease for a longer period of time(2). Women’s cricket came into existence in the year 1745. It has been said that the first ever match was played between the maids of Bramley and Hambledon on the 26th of July, 1745. Later, the first ever World Cup for women was held in the year 1973 at England by ICC. It was an ODI (One Day Internationals) format which is also referred to as . In this type of format, both the teams face 50 overs each(3). Cricket is a very special game celebrated worldwide and the participation of every country keeps on increases year after year be it men or women(4). For a person to become a renowned cricketer the journey begins from a very primitive stage. To be able to reach international mega grounds such as Wankhede, Lords etc. players have to start their journeys right from gullies and local grounds. After years of hard work, perseverance, blood and sweat which is put in by a budding cricketer, is when he/she is able to make up to the level where his/her name is chanted by millions sitting in the stadium. Therefore, domestic cricket becomes a crucial part for all the aspiring cricketers in their respective careers. Not does is give these aspirants a chance to showcase their talent and ability, but also shows them the correct way of playing the . It teaches the cricketers sportsman spirit and most importantly lays certain standards upon which the players are expected to perform at all levels. These guidelines differ from country to country depending upon the governing bodies present in it.

Annals of Tropical Medicine & Public Health http://doi.org/10.36295/ASRO.2020.231765

Jadhav &Raizada (2020): Competitive balance of women in cricket Nov 2020 Vol. 23 Issue 17

Table 1. ICC One Day Women’s International Rankings by Country as on 29th March,2020 Ranking Position Teams Points Ratings

01 Australia 3945 152 02 India 3747 125 03 England 3568 123 04 New Zealand 2675 103 05 South 3626 101 06 West Indies 1979 82 07 Pakistan 1835 73 08 Sri Lanka 1208 55 09 Bangladesh 542 54 10 Ireland 110 18 Source: Official ICC website(5)

The research regarding the domestic ODI tournaments was conducted upon the topmost four cricketing countries and it was observed that:

Australia: Australia has been segregated into seven teams based on their regions namely, Australian capital territory, , , , , and . In 2003, the Australian Cricket Board (ACB) was responsible for the functioning of cricketing activities in Australia pertaining to men and the Women’s (WCA), responsible for managing women’s merged and formed a single body named as Cricket Australia which organizes the ‘Women’s national Cricket League’ (WNCL), first played in the year 1996. It involves six of the member teams to compete against each other in two 50 over limited format matches. The teams that top each side ultimately enter the finals and the winning team is awarded with the Ruth Preddey cup. The Australian women’s cricket team is one of the most decorated and inspiring teams that have reached to the top by sheer hard work, commitment and passion.

England: England is the pioneer for the game of cricket, it finds it’s roots in this country and hence has been supportive of all the formats. English domestic cricket follows a ‘county club culture’ cricket format for both men’s and women’s cricket. At national level a 50 over tournament called the Women’s Country championship is played at a national level by The England Women’s team. England has had this County club culture as a part of its history and has followed it till the present times. The women’s county club is now called as the Royal London Women’s One Day Cup and consists of 18 teams participating in it mostly coming from various historical counties on England.

New Zealand: The New Zealand Women’s cricket also known as White Ferns team is also one of the top ranked teams. There are various domestic tournaments arranged by the Board in the one-day format. In the one-day format the ‘Hallyburton Johnstone shield’ is organized for the six domestic teams prevalent in New Zealand. Two back to back 50 overs rounds are played by all the competing teams at every venue and the players especially attempt on achieving to be selected in the White Fern.

India: The words ‘India’ and ‘Cricket’ are almost synonymous to each other. Cricket is celebrated in India like nowhere other therefore there are many young aspirants wanting to be successful cricketers, adding to the high level of challenges and competition faced by them in the Country. There are many first class or domestic tournaments played in India. In the ODI format for women there is the ‘Senior Women’s One day league’ started in 2006-07. India has various teams representing many of its states. In this format two tiers are created and the states are divided into 5 groups. Two are the elite group and the remaining 3 are in the plate group. Finalists of the plate

Annals of Tropical Medicine & Public Health http://doi.org/10.36295/ASRO.2020.231765

Jadhav &Raizada (2020): Competitive balance of women in cricket Nov 2020 Vol. 23 Issue 17

group are promoted to the elite group at the end of the season. Such amount of competitiveness in required in this country considering every third person in the country wants to become a cricketer(6). From a spectator’s point of view the existing competition between two teams is the most exciting part. Banking upon this aspect, the governing bodies organizing the sports tournaments lay down certain rules and restrictions to increase the competitive spirit amongst the teams in order to gain maximum fan attraction thereby generating revenue(7)(8).All the sports leagues organizing sports tournaments keep in mind that there is enough competitiveness between the two teams so that the predictability about the win is uncertain thereby increasing the excitement(8). Nobody enjoys games where there is one team that is superior to other rendering the match to be a predictable one. Hence, maintaining a competitive balance amongst the playing teams is important. Also, there should not be too much competitive balance as well which causes complete lack of prediction of the outcome. Therefore, for the leagues to keep their matches interesting and audience glued to them it’s necessary to strike the correct balance(9). A study was carried out by Michael R. Butler in which major league was taken into consideration and two models of competitive balance were used to test how competitively balanced the league was(10). Overall competitive balance involves all the teams to have presented equal number of strengths and weaknesses in the league to keep the predictability of the outcome uncertain and cause the league to be exciting(11). The competitive balance trend is nothing new in the sports industry. It has been used in several different sports to find out how competitive a league or knockout tournament was. UEFA board responsible for revenue distribution on the European level, gave out 33.9 million Euros between European clubs. This is done in order to keep the competitive balance increasing and attract many viewers(12). Overall, the competitive balance done over decades is important to find patterns and there are many potential factors that affect any league and many such indicators of the competitive balance. Over a period of time the English premiere league seemed to lose its competitiveness and this was also marked by the overseas investment of the English clubs. Further it was also seen that there was a significant relationship between the league’s size (no. of clubs) and the competitiveness of the league(13).Etemad in 2011, used competitive balance to compare leagues in, Iran, Germany, France, England and Spain. After comparison it was found that the Iran premier league enjoys more balance while Spain enjoys the least(14). Over the time highly competitive balance has helped Iran to have severe competitions and help change the otherwise Tehran-oriented and encourage other cities to participate as well(15). The concept of competitive balance is not limited to number of countries. If needed it can be done to compare continents or even the hemisphere of the continents and across various sports(16)(17). As discussed earlier competitive balance is an important factor which keeps the uncertainty of the outcome high. This uncertainty of outcome causes increased traction of viewers both in stadiums and for those watching on television. It can be seen that a rising competitive balance can cause the demand curve of viewership to move up and towards right. Hence, for any league competitive balance will become crucial to be analysed in orderto maximize their income potential which will also in turn reflect in the number and quality of sponsorship the league gets(18).It becomes important also when looked upon from a business point of view where the sports leagues can decide as to which rules and guidelines have to be adopted by them that help them to keep up and promote a proper competitive balance that ensure the league’s stability. Many leagues may become bankrupt or lose viewership due to rival leagues, so competitive balance can also be a prevention for these.

Annals of Tropical Medicine & Public Health http://doi.org/10.36295/ASRO.2020.231765

Jadhav &Raizada (2020): Competitive balance of women in cricket Nov 2020 Vol. 23 Issue 17

Figure 1. The Effect of Competitive Balance on Spectator Demand (Other things remain constant)

To keep the scenario similar as portrayed in the graph, regulation and redistribution within the sports league is necessary. The teams at top will keep getting richer and more powerful in absence of regulations and vice versa to the teams at bottom. This will in a decline in the competitive balance leading to the match being boring and predictable. Therefore, for maintaining this instability all sports league redistributes the income from the top teams to the bottom teams. This redistribution helps in creating a stable environment, provides equal opportunities for everyone and hence an increased competitive balance that will attract more viewers and therefore revenue to the league. This research aims at understanding the global trend of competitive balance of Domestic One Day Women’s Cricket Competition by using the Five club concentration ratio (C5) and the C5 index of competitive balance. This will help the cricket governing bodies of various countries, understand the competitive balance of their domestic leagues. It will promote development of their National teams and players, enabling them to be more competitive internationally.

2. Material & methods:

2.1. Sample: The data considered in this research was obtained from domestic Women’s One Day tournaments, namely, Women’s National Cricket League (WNCL) in Australia, Royal London One-Day Cup in England, Hallyburton Johnstone Shield in New Zealand and Senior Women’s One day league in India. The data was collected over a period of five years beginning from 2015 until the year 2019 and the points obtained by the top five teams playing in the respective leagues is shown in Table 2.

2.2. Selection of Variables: In this research, the dependent variables are the C5 ratio and the C5 index of competitive balance, whereas the independent variable is the points obtained by the top five domestic teams of every country.

2.3. Data Collection: The research conducted for this study was descriptive and analytic in nature. It involved secondary data obtained from online cricket databases, namely, Cricbuzz and Cricinfo(19), coupled with data gathered from official sites such as the BCCI(20) and New Zealand Cricket(21).

Annals of Tropical Medicine & Public Health http://doi.org/10.36295/ASRO.2020.231765

Jadhav &Raizada (2020): Competitive balance of women in cricket Nov 2020 Vol. 23 Issue 17

Competitive balance is quite a difficult measure to calculate be it for one league or two or more teams/clubs competing in the league. It can be calculated using many ways(8). There are various economic indices present to quantify competitive balance such as The Five Club Concentration (C5 ratio) and C5 index of competitive balance. Earlier researchers have used these indices to regulate CB for various leagues.

Following formulae have been used to obtain C5 ratio and C5ICB:

C5 Ratio = (1) Total points won by the top five clubs 푇표푡푎푙푛푢푚푏푒푟표푓푝표푖푛푡푠푤표푛푏푦푎푙푙푐푙푢푏푠 C5 Index of Competitive Balance = ×100 (2) 퐶5 5/푁 3. Results and Discussion: C5 index of competitive balance depicts a minimum value of 100 then it is stated to be perfectly stabilized league. Competitive balance in particular league is lower when the value of C5ICB is higher. The C5 ratio has a shortcoming that the number of teams have a higher effect on the sensitivity of the value obtained, regardless of a perfectly balanced league or any changes observed in it. Therefore, to assess competitive balance C5ICB is considered to be a more valid index. Following Table 2. shows the points taken from the top five teams playing in the professional women’s domestic 50 overs format cricket tournaments during 2015– 2019. The C5 and C5ICB results for the respective teams during 2015-2019 are shown in Table 3 and 4; and Figures 2, 3, 4 and 5. New Zealand league showed the highest overall C5 value with a value of 0.90 while India’s league shows the lowest value of 0.32. Likewise, the overall C5ICB index portrayed that the New Zealand league was the most competitively balanced (C5ICB= 107.52) while India (C5ICB= 167.23) was the least competitively balanced league. Ranking the Women’s ODI leagues across four countries based on the competitive balances calculated from each were in the following order: New Zealand, Australia, England and India. Figure 4. depicts a decreasing trend of C5ICB which means that the leagues are more competitively balanced from 2017 to 2019.

Table 2: Scores obtained by the Five Teams from Women’s Domestic One Day Cricket Leagues Country Year Row England New Zealand India Australia 1st 13 35 16 24 2nd 12 26 16 21 2015 3rd 11 26 12 14 4th 10 17 12 13 5th 10 17 12 13 1st 13 35 16 19 2nd 10 33 16 19 2016 3rd 10 26 14 18 4th 9 22 14 16 5th 9 11 12 14 1st 14 42 16 30 2017 2nd 13 33 14 22 3rd 12 24 14 15 Annals of Tropical Medicine & Public Health http://doi.org/10.36295/ASRO.2020.231765

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4th 11 20 14 14 5th 9 10 14 11 1st 12 38 32 22 2nd 11 38 30 19 2018 3rd 11 27 28 18 4th 11 18 24 12 5th 10 13 24 9 1st 14 29 32 26 2nd 13 23 30 25 2019 3rd 12 19 28 23 4th 12 2 26 17 5th 10 24 26 16

Table 3: C5 of Women’s Domestic One Day Cricket Leagues in England, New Zealand, India and Australia C5 Country Year England New Zealand India Australia 2015 0.40 0.91 0.34 0.91 2016 0.35 0.93 0.32 0.91 2017 0.42 0.94 0.30 0.92 2018 0.38 0.97 0.32 0.83 2019 0.42 0.72 0.33 0.88 Average 0.40 0.90 0.32 0.89

Table 4: C5ICB of Women’s Domestic One Day Cricket Leagues in England, New Zealand, India and Australia C5ICB Country Year England New Zealand India Australia 2015 144.00 109.17 176.80 127.96 2016 127.50 112.06 164.21 128.09 2017 149.58 112.99 157.31 128.80 2018 137.50 116.52 166.88 116.67 2019 152.50 86.87 170.93 122.79 Average 142.22 107.52 167.23 124.86

Annals of Tropical Medicine & Public Health http://doi.org/10.36295/ASRO.2020.231765

Jadhav &Raizada (2020): Competitive balance of women in cricket Nov 2020 Vol. 23 Issue 17

Figure 2. Study of the 5-year pattern of C5 ratio of Women’s Domestic One Day Cricket Leagues in England, New Zealand, India and Australia

Figure 3. Study of the 5-year pattern of C5ICB ratio of Women’s Domestic One Day Cricket Leagues in England, New Zealand, India and Australia

Mean of the Competitive balance of Women's Domestic One Day Cricket Leagues 200 1,00 150 0,80

0,60

100 C5

C5ICB 0,40 C5ICB 50 0,20 C5 0 0,00 England New Zealand India Australia Countries

Figure 4: The mean depicting the competitive balance of season 2015-2019 country wise

Annals of Tropical Medicine & Public Health http://doi.org/10.36295/ASRO.2020.231765

Jadhav &Raizada (2020): Competitive balance of women in cricket Nov 2020 Vol. 23 Issue 17

Pattern in Competitive Balance of Women's Domestic One Day Cricket Leagues 140,00 0,65 0,64 138,00 0,63 136,00 0,62 0,61 134,00 0,60 C5 C5ICB 132,00 0,59 0,58 130,00 0,57 128,00 0,56 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Year

C5ICB C5

Figure 5: Year wise pattern of the mean depicting the CB of Women’s Domestic One Day Leagues in England, New Zealand, India and Australia

This study was carried out by secondary research and included the trends of competitive balance prevalent in various 50-overs limited format in the domestic format for Women’s cricket. A period of five years from 2015 to 2020 was observed and the C5 ratio and C5ICB index were calculated for the various tournaments. Four major countries currently topping the rank’s table namely, India, Australia, New-Zealand and England were chosen and thevarious domestic tournaments held for Women were quantified. The trends for competitive balances differed across all the countries due to varying conditions present and mainly due to the huge difference in the number of teams playing in each league(22). It can be understood that the trend of competitive balance changes significantly not only across different leagues but also within the same league over different years due to the varying number of teams hence it becomes an important factor. This can be explained very well by presenting an example from this study, the highest competitive balance overall was observed in New-Zealand whereas lowest was observed in India as there are around 6 domestic teams in the former whereas almost 30 in the latter hence proving the crucial factor. This discussion also paves way to understand that ultimately a sport is loved by its fans when it is exciting and just. For keeping this up competitive balance is essential. It has been seen that for any sports league to be successful there are five factors: 1) Possessing commendable players; 2) Club Managements maintaining stability; 3) Employment of professional technical staff; 4) club sponsor supporting the revenue structure of the club and 5) Enjoy the audience attendance and fan support(23). From the audience perspective they want their favourite teams to win in any match but they want more and more matches where there are close finishes and tough competition hence, Competitive balances should be analyzed often to achieve the perfect balance(24). There were various papers that dealt with the measure of competitive balance and its varying trends in various football leagues. The trends observed for leagues arranged by UEFA in England helped to understand that over the years the competitive balance has been decreasing and so the redistribution of income amongst the team is done likewise(19). This helps to strike a balance. It was also seen that by using C5 football in Iran has changed its structure over a period of time by the inclusion of various developing city teams in it(15). Likewise, this should be incorporated by cricketing teams worldwide as well. Not just the teams and leagues at international level but also domestic level because that is where the nurturing of a budding cricketer starts. If such competitiveness is attained at this level, spectator’s attention will increase and much more development of the player can be possible. This can be looked upon at from a business aspect as well. The fact that a sport like football is watched by millions and is one of the richest sports presents worldwide indicates that there is Annals of Tropical Medicine & Public Health http://doi.org/10.36295/ASRO.2020.231765

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something right done by those corporations to garner that kind of attention, popularity and revenue. Similarly, if the same is done in the cricketing world the whole scenario can change. More leagues should be introduced at the domestic level thereby supporting new talent and can be made interesting by utilizing competitive balance and perfect combinations. This will help this talent to make its place internationally thereby contributing to increased supporters, sponsors and revenue. Many more of such facets can be identified and implemented in this sports industry, after all sports defines unity, talent, excitement, celebration, passion etc. and will always be a pleasure for the audience.

4. Conclusion: Reaching to the conclusion it can be seen that the competitive balance was highest for New Zealand and lowest for India. It was also observed that the C5 ratio for all the countries were between 0-1 claiming that there is perfect competition situation. There is an equal chance for infinite number of companies to enter and contribute to the sport. This further adds to the point that Cricket as a game can be uplifted more. Cricket is a sport that is celebrated worldwide. It was considered to be a male dominated sport but since the last few years women’s cricket is developing and making its own mark. The involvement of fans, organisations, their participation etc. is continuously increasing. In recent times, there has been an increase in the revenue generated during women’s cricket matches as the number of spectators have increased. To keep the fans engaged the matches have to be neck to neck and not one sided. Hence the governing bodies need to make sure that the competitive balance of these matches are maintained. The governing bodies of the respective countries also need to introduce more domestic leagues so that the women cricketers get more exposure at the domestic level. When the level of competition will improve right from the grassroot level it will eventually help in maintaining the level of competitive balance at the international level as only the best of talent will make it to the highest level.

Ethical Clearance: Not applicable Source of Funding: Self-funded Conflict of Interest: There is no conflict of interest among the authors

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