The magic number for ODI wickets in hand

If you are four down after 35 overs, it’s anyone’s game.

You probably remember the saying ‘‘double your score at 30 overs’’.

It was one of those things we always heard in cricket. Keep wickets in hand and you’d generally accelerate in the final few overs and double your team total.

In recent years, as bats have got bigger, boundaries smaller and pitches flatter, the final 15 overs have become boom time.

Having wickets in hand at the 35-over mark in a One Day International is seen as vital in order to accelerate and make the highest score possible.

So, what does it do for a batting side to keep wickets in hand? How does that change in the second innings of a match? Is there a magic number which means you are most likely to get a victory?

We collected data from 1325 One Day International matches played since June, 2001, that weren’t rainshortened and lasted at least 35 overs.

In those games, the side batting first won 55 per cent of the time. That number increases if the team batting first had lost three or fewer wickets by the 35th over of the game.

When a team was one or two wickets down, they had the most success with a 74.55 per cent and 68.09 per cent winning percentage respectively. That winning percentage drops to 56.83 when a team is three wickets down at the same mark.

Interestingly, having both openers unbeaten at the 35-over mark wasn’t a positive. In only 10 such games, the team batting first won only four games.

Something could be said for the need for risk versus reward. When a wicket had yet to fall at 35 overs, the average total was only 294 runs. If one or two wickets fell by 35 overs, the average score increased to 316 and 297 respectively.

In all three of those situations, the percentage of total runs scored in the final 15 overs of the match were almost the same, at 39.11 per cent when none down, and 39.08 per cent at one and two wickets down.

It’s the chasing totals where things get really interesting.

From a straight winning percentage, if a team was three or fewer wickets down at 35 overs, they had at least a 70 per cent chance of winning the game. But it’s the runs scored at the 35-over mark which are equally important.

The magic number would appear to be 64 per cent. A team batting second needs 64 per cent of the required runs with 15 overs to spare to be a good chance to win the game. Any less, and your chances take a tumble.

With four wickets down at the 35-over mark, teams batting second won the match 48.56 per cent of the time.

But if we break that down a bit further, the 64 per cent number shows its importance.

At four down with more than 64 per cent of the runs, teams batting second won 76 per cent of games. Less than 64 per cent, and lost 76 per cent of games.

Over the past three years, the 64 per cent number has been particularly important.

In 192 games, 64 per cent of the runs were scored by the 35th over on 87 occasions, 72 of which ended in victory for the chasing side. Nine of the 15 losses were when a team was five or more wickets down by the 35th over.

In the remaining 105 games, when a team didn’t reach the 64 per cent mark, there were only 11 wins. For nine of those victories, four or fewer wickets had fallen at the 35th over. One final thing to note. Since the beginning of 2014, a time when chasing large totals has become something of an art-form, chasing teams with at least seven wickets in hand at the 35-over mark have won more than 80 per cent of matches.

If they are four down, they drop to a 50 per cent chance. Below that, it’s as good as a loss.