Stats: Winning the Toss and Batting First Propensities

Should Test cricket do away with the coin toss?

Recently, there has been a debate in the cricketing circles to eliminate the toss from test cricket. Some proponents of the theory suggest that rather than spinning the coin the guest team should be given the choice whether to bat first or bowl. They say in this way the advantage of the home side while preparing the pitch shall lessen.

In the previous Bangalore test between South Africa and India, Virat Kohli after winning the toss opted to field first. It was after 41 years that a captain winning the toss at Bangalore has decided not to bat first.

During the Delhi test, it was found out that no team has ever opted to bat second after winning the toss at the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium Delhi. It is indeed an apparent rarity that despite hosting 33 Test matches Delhi stadium has not seen a team that batted second after winning the toss.

So, we decided to dig some numbers to find out how many teams actually are afraid of batting second and are more keen to put on some runs on the scorecard for the other team to chase them eventually in the fourth innings of a test.

It is no hidden fact that chasing a total in the fourth inning is indeed a very difficult task. But the numbers we came across suggest that the international cricketers are equally, if not more, eager to bat first after winning the toss when compared to the street boys.

We also went some steps further to find out which stadiums and countries have the highest win toss-bat first percentage. The research came up with some interesting points. Let us first see how batting first tendencies are across different formats of international cricket.

Tests have the highest percentage (by a margin of 20 percent) of teams batting first after winning the toss while in limited overs format the decision is almost fifty-fifty with balance slightly tilting in favour of batting first.

W/L Ratio for teams winning the toss and batting first is above 1 for Tests, T20Is and also overall matches, but lower than 1 for ODIs.

Format	Matches Played	Toss Won- Batted First	Percentage	Won	Lost	Tie	Drawn/NR	W/L Ratio
All International Matches	6376	3763	59.02	1584	1553	26	599	1.019
Tests	2191	1597	72.89	555	496	2	543	1.118
ODIs	3712	1916	51.62	901	941	19	55	0.957
T20Is	473	250	52.85	128	116	5	1	1.103

Now we will focus only on Test Matches.

Win-Toss Bat First Team by Team Comparison (Tests)

When we ran our fingers across the record books, we found out that England is the team most likely to bat first after winning the toss. At an overwhelming 80+ percentage, England has batted first 4 times out 5 when they won the toss, and fielded first only once.

Australia and India have a percentage of 80 and 77 respectively and are on number 2 and 3.

Excluding Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, New Zealand is the least successful team after winning the toss and batting first with a win-loss ratio of just 0.355 in such matches.

Among top 8 Nations, 6 have a win-loss ratio in excess of 1 when playing first after winning the toss – which means they win the test game more often than not when batting first after winning the toss.

Only West Indies and New Zealand (among top 8 nations) have a W/L ratio lower than 1.

The percentage has not dropped below 60 for any team. New Zealand has the lowest percentage at 60.59.

The table is presented below for further analysis.

Team	Matches Played	Won Toss	Won Toss- Batted First	Percentage Batting First	Won	Lost	Tied	Drawn	W/L Ratio
England	965	465	374	80.43	143	90	0	141	1.588
Australia	783	397	317	79.85	156	81	1	79	1.925
India	495	250	193	77.20	56	51	0	85	1.098
South Africa	396	189	144	76.19	53	51	0	40	1.039
Pakistan	395	188	127	67.55	35	32	0	60	1.093
Zimbabwe	97	56	37	66.07	3	25	0	9	0.12
West Indies	510	262	170	64.89	55	61	1	53	0.901
Bangladesh	93	48	30	62.50	4	21	0	5	0.19
Sri Lanka	243	133	82	61.65	29	25	0	28	1.16
New Zealand	404	203	123	60.59	21	59	0	43	0.355

Percentage of Batting First After Winning Toss- Comparison by Host Country

The purpose of this part is to find out which host countries are most likely to see a team batting first after winning the toss. In other words, teams playing in which parts of the world are afraid of ultimately chasing down a target.

India hosted 248 tests, and only in 20 of those, it saw a team batting second after winning the toss. So, an incredibly high percentage of 91 is carried by Indian grounds when it comes to batting first after winning the toss.

Among top 8 nations, 5 hosting countries have a win/ loss ratio in excess of 1. So, a team winning the toss and batting first is more likely to win the game here than the team batting second.

Pakistan, West Indies and New Zealand have a lower win/loss ratio among top 8 nations for a team batting first after winning the toss.

New Zealand is again at the bottom of the table when it comes to percentage. It is the only host country where a toss-winning captain has decided to field first or more occasions than not.

Host Country	Matches Played	Won Toss- Batted First	Percentage	Won	Lost	Tied	Drawn	W/L Ratio
India	248	228	91.94	68	61	1	97	1.114
U.A.E.	25	20	80.00	9	7	0	4	1.285
England	499	397	79.56	148	110	0	139	1.345
Pakistan	151	112	74.17	20	32	0	60	0.625
Bangladesh	52	38	73.08	11	17	0	10	0.647
Australia	401	290	72.32	132	102	1	55	1.294
South Africa	211	150	71.09	61	52	0	37	1.173
Sri Lanka	126	89	70.63	35	28	0	26	1.25
West Indies	233	149	63.95	40	45	0	64	0.888
Zimbabwe	52	31	59.62	9	12	0	10	0.75
New Zealand	193	93	48.19	22	30	0	41	0.733

Percentage of Batting First After Winning Toss- Comparison by Host Country (Tests)

We selected as many as 53 grounds from around the world, and this is what we came across.

4- Number of stadiums with a percentage of won toss-batting first is exact 100. Interestingly, all four stadiums are on Indian soil.

4- Number of Stadiums to have a percentage lower than 50 – 2 out of them are from New Zealand.

7- 7 stadiums with the highest percentage are in India.

49- Out of selected 53 stadiums, 49 of them have a percentage higher than 50 – meaning thereby that winning the toss implies batting first on occasions more than fielding first events.

34- Number of stadiums that have a W/L ratio equal to or more than 1. 19 stadiums, on the other hand, have a W/L ratio lower than 1.

4- Out of the bottom 7 grounds – grounds with lowest won toss-bat first percentage belong to New Zealand.

Ground	Played	Won Toss-Batted First	Percentage	Won	Lost	Tied	Drawn	W/L Ratio
Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi	33	33	100.00	5	13	0	14	0.384
Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai	18	18	100.00	2	5	0	11	0.4
Nehru Stadium, Madras	9	9	100.00	5	1	0	3	5
Vidarbha C.A. Ground, Nagpur	9	9	100.00	2	2	0	5	1
MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chepauk, Chennai	31	30	96.77	10	9	1	10	1.111
Green Park, Kanpur	21	20	95.24	6	3	0	11	2
Sardar Patel Stadium, Ahmedabad	12	11	91.67	3	2	0	6	1.5
Old Wanderers, Johannesburg	22	20	90.91	7	6	0	7	1.166
M.Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore	21	19	90.48	6	5	0	8	1.2
P Sara Oval, Colombo	20	18	90.00	7	7	0	4	1
Old Trafford, Manchester	76	68	89.47	26	14	0	28	1.857
Adelaide Oval	74	66	89.19	29	19	0	18	1.526
Dubai Cricket Stadium	9	8	88.89	3	3	0	2	1
Sharjah Cricket Ground	8	7	87.50	3	3	0	1	1
Eden Gardens, Kolkata	39	34	87.18	10	8	0	16	1.25
Kennington Oval, London	98	85	86.73	30	24	0	31	1.25
Bourda, Georgetown, Guyana	30	26	86.67	5	7	0	14	0.714
Trent Bridge, Nottingham	61	51	83.61	19	12	0	20	1.583
The Wanderers, Johannesburg	35	29	82.86	15	7	0	7	2.142
Newlands, Cape Town	52	43	82.69	17	19	0	7	0.894
Galle International Stadium	27	22	81.48	12	5	0	5	2.4
National Stadium, Karachi	41	33	80.49	4	12	0	17	0.333
Iqbal Stadium, Faisalabad	24	19	79.17	5	2	0	12	2.5
Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai	24	19	79.17	9	5	0	5	1.8
Sydney Cricket Ground	103	81	78.64	34	34	0	13	1
Zahur Ahmed Stadium, Chittagong	14	11	78.57	3	3	0	5	1
Headingley, Leeds	74	58	78.38	23	22	0	13	1.045
Sabina Park, Kingston, Jamaica	48	37	77.08	12	14	0	11	0.857
Queens Sports Club, Bulawayo	19	14	73.68	2	7	0	5	0.285
Melbourne Cricket Ground	107	77	71.96	39	28	0	10	1.392
Lord's, London	131	93	70.99	34	24	0	35	1.416
Edgbaston, Birmingham	48	34	70.83	10	13	0	11	0.769
Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore	40	28	70.00	3	11	0	14	0.272
McLean Park, Napier	10	7	70.00	1	0	0	6	-
Asgiriya Stadium, Kandy	21	14	66.67	6	4	0	4	1.5
Punjab C.A. Stadium, Mohali	12	8	66.67	3	3	0	2	1
Kingsmead, Durban	40	26	65.00	10	7	0	9	1.428
Shere Bangla Stadium, Dhaka	14	9	64.29	3	4	0	2	0.75
SSC, Colombo	39	25	64.10	8	11	0	6	0.727
Bellerive Oval, Hobart	11	7	63.64	5	1	0	1	5
Queen's Park Oval, Trinidad	59	37	62.71	12	11	0	14	1.09
Brisbane Cricket Ground	58	35	60.34	15	10	1	9	1.5
Bangabandhu National Stadium, Dhaka	19	11	57.89	1	4	0	6	0.25
St George's Park, Port Elizabeth	26	15	57.69	6	7	0	2	0.857
Antigua Recreation Ground, Antigua	22	12	54.55	2	3	0	7	0.666
W.A.C.A. Ground, Perth	42	22	52.38	8	10	0	4	0.8
Eden Park, Auckland	49	25	51.02	7	6	0	12	1.166
Basin Reserve, Wellington	57	29	50.88	5	14	0	10	0.357
Harare Sports Club	32	16	50.00	7	5	0	4	1.4
AMI Stadium, Christchurch	40	19	47.50	5	6	0	8	0.833
Kensington Oval, Bridgetown, Barbados	51	24	47.06	4	8	0	12	0.5
Super Sports, Centurion	20	6	30.00	3	1	0	2	3.00
Seddon Park, Hamilton	20	6	30.00	2	4	0	0	0.500