Visualisation in cricket: Data facing the music
A little while back we looked at England’s rock star status in the cricket world, but left unanswered what guitar-slinging god’s persona they’d taken on. So, with the benefit of another test series against South Africa, and the T20 World Cup, just what is their rock identity?
The summer of setting records
England made a mockery of history with their voracious run-chasing against New Zealand and India, so let’s compare their exploits with another contemporary disruptor, streaming giant Spotify. We overlaid the top 25 run chases with the top 25 most streamed tracks on Spotify to see if any one artist stood out as the most connected.
For fun, we put the results on a map of Britain, plotting each cricket match/song ranked 1 to 25 on major town centres running from north to south. So the #1 ranked item sits over Edinburgh (yes, Scotland and Wales got in the mix to spread the visuals), through to #25 over Plymouth in the south.
By selecting an artist from the list, the summary at bottom right changes to reflect the rock star alignment, with the number of appearances and highest ranking of any exact match. On the map, England’s big 4 chases are marked with red dots, while artist rankings are marked pink; an exact match lights up gold.
Play around, as the analysis continues.
Fast and furious
England then beat South Africa 2-1, ultimately dominating after being 1-0 down. In test cricket that’s a fairly big deal, so they certainly continued their domineering ways. However, it was a series of frenetic cricket that never went beyond a third day. Imagine if you could routinely finish your work week mid afternoon on a Wednesday, nice huh?
So, perhaps not the most attritional cricket, but they still rocked the house – ask any England fan at the raucous final days. The question here is, in what way did it rock?
It wasn’t exactly Led Zeppelin
Not to say that Led Zeppelin couldn’t be succinct, but they didn’t mind an epic or two.
With the benefit of some other analyses to be found on the internet, we categorised a number of musical eras by average song length. We then pitched test match duration in days against song length in minutes, even picking a song to captain the sonic categories (all Brits, naturally).
Here’s the result of that:
What you can see from this is:
an ‘Oasis’ is a test that goes the distance;
an ‘Amy Winehouse’ is a test that meets the historical average;
England were motoring at a pace between The Buzzcocks and The Beatles;
a ‘Led Zeppelin’ is a timeless test from pre-war days;
and a ‘Napalm Death’ is a test abandoned with barely a ball bowled.
So, come on, what’s the final answer??
Approach 1: You may have found by now that the first approach showed some nice alignment with none other than Ed Sheeran, owner of four of the top 25 streams on Spotify, including the #1 spot, just like England.
Redheads ruling the roost between Messrs Sheeran and Stokes.
Approach 2: Whilst statistically falling somewhere between early 60s and punk, the breakneck speed of play has to fall in the domain of the latter. Jonny Bairstow to Johnny Rotten?
Approach 3: Or put all that aside, because as winners on Sunday of the T20 World Cup, We…well, They…Are The Champions – the kings of white ball cricket can own the Queen anthem for the next few years.
Tell us what you think
We’ve shown a few approaches to revealing England’s rock identity, what do you think?
Does Sheeran sit about right? Or is a Vicious, Lennon, or Mercury more accurate?
Maybe you have another take altogether, please share with your comments!
We specialise in data visualisation at White Box
We can help illuminate your data so that you can make the right, unbiased decisions for your organisation.
As your partner in data visualisation, we’ll help you to realise the full potential of your data and maximise your business success through advanced and innovative solutions that make all the difference.
Get in touch today for your free data strategy consultation.
