Writing my last post on the use of analytics and the distinction between capacity, execution and outcomes, I realised that another philosophy related distinction that is helpful for analysing cricket is that between brute and option luck. Given that, I thought I would write a short post exploring that distinction and how it can help us think about what it means to be lucky or take risks in cricket and how that consideration can help in evaluating players and teams consistently.

My thoughts on this topic were mainly motivated by two recent uses of analytics to evaluate players. The first interested me because of the questions it raised about how to think about players being lucky in cricket. Ben Jones in analysing Marnus Labuschagne’s batting performances argues that according to at least two metrics he has been a “lucky” player - he is caught less often compared to other batters on average, and he edges on average more than other players before getting out - and yet he has also been “unlucky” in two ways - his first appearance against England was facing Jofra Archer and because of Covid he has not toured outside Australia. Jones also argues that Ben Stokes has been lucky with respect to the first metric as well.

Jones rightly points out that “It’s extremely difficult to talk about luck without riling people”. Describing cricket players as hitting a chancy hundred or bowling with some luck seems to diminish their performances. In trying to understand the nature of luck without diminishing a player’s autonomy and hard work, Jones’s proposes that much like luck is thought of in society as an advantage gained by the wider structure of how society is organised, “a fairer way of viewing luck in sport” is to see it as a “structure bigger than yourself”. Understood this way, we can see that to evaluate a player as lucky is not to malign their skill but to acknowledge that sometimes we need luck to be good. To that end Labuschagne is both a good batter as his record suggests but also lucky.

Although I don’t have any deep qualms with Jones’s analysis, one question that it did raise was that although the larger structure at play that makes Labuschagne unlucky is clear (eg. first appearance being against Jofra Archer, and Covid), it isn’t so clear what the structure is that makes him lucky on the two analytics metrics he presents? After all there are no rules that force fielders to drop the chances he provides. In fact as Jones acknowledges there may be aspects of Labuschagne’s scoring that make it less likely that fielders are in the slips when he edges it. This would actually run counter to Labuschagne being lucky being it would mean that there is something in his technique that is causing this to happen.

Although I think Jones is on the right track in thinking about luck in cricket, the questions and worries I raise above can be solved if we borrow a distinction from political philosophy. This is the distinction between brute luck and option luck first explicitly raised by Ronald Dworkin but raised in different terms by others as well. The basic idea is that we can think of the luck that people have no choice in deciding whether to experience or not as brute luck. One might think of various cases of disease, unemployment or disabilities in this way. This is in contrast with option luck which is luck that a person can choose to inflict on themselves. We can think of gambling or doing extreme sports in this way.

Translating to cricket the distinction between brute and option luck provides a cleaner way of understanding how a player like Labuschagne is lucky despite being skilful. In the case of the two analytic metrics Jones refers to, Labuschagne is benefiting from option luck. His batting execution is making him edge the ball, but unlike other batters he is, for the time being, benefiting from this. A player’s skill is easily reconciled with this type of luck because it is a direct consequence of the choices the player is making. But this also means that when that luck begins to turn against the player we can still hold the player responsible for executing in such a way that makes those unlucky outcomes likely.

But Labuschagne is also lucky in the brute luck sense when it comes to his limited overseas opportunities. There is no choice he can make to tour overseas and test himself in conditions outside Australia. However lucky or unlucky he is in this way it is beyond his choices. Given that, there is no sense in which we should hold him responsible or diminish his skill with respect to this form of luck. There is no choice that he could have made to make it different.

With the distinction of brute and option luck on the table, I think it can also help in clarifying the idea of risk taking in cricket. Karthik Krishnaswamy in analysing Rishabh Pant’s duck in the second innings of the second test in India’s tour of South Africa argues that rather than criticising Pant’s execution in isolation we should see it in the context of his lack of confidence in his own defensive technique. This is because on the one hand Pant takes more risks than other batters and, as such, sometimes taking the risk doesn’t pay off. But when it does, as his Test innings in Australia and in India show, the payoff is large. As a result there is not much point evaluating a player harshly for this particular outcome.

But Krishnaswamy rightly points that not all risk-taking has equal odds of success and as the matchup data shows Pant averages quite a bit less on facing right arm pace over the wicket. As such, a better question is why a player chose to take a certain risk at a certain moment. Even if we can’t definitively evaluate the player’s execution we can explain it in the context of their other options, in particular Pant’s lack of confidence in his own defensive technique against the matchup of right arm pace from over the wicket.

Much like Jones’s piece I have no deep qualms with the analysis made, but rather think that we can clarify the ideas we are using. Rather than simply thinking of “risk taking” if we think in terms of option luck we can disambiguate the aspects of risk taking we can rightly hold a player responsible for and those we cannot. In simple terms, although Pant is unlucky in sometimes getting out cheaply with his high risk approach to batting, it is a form of luck he is choosing to entertain. And so the evaluation is about whether that choice in a given situation is optimal. The appeal to a lack of confidence in his defensive technique although a good explanation of the choice does not justify it. After all, the development of one’s technique is something a player can change.

However, the conditions a player finds themselves in (perhaps a particularly seaming pitch that nullifies certain batting techniques), the particular matchups they face and the particular game situation they find themselves in are forms of brute luck. Those are circumstances they have no control over. The fortune or misfortune they suffer as a result of these factors must then not feature or at least must be weighed appropriately in the considerations for evaluating players. The key with Pant, much like it is with Labuschagne, is to remain consistent. The distinction between brute and option luck helps in this regard as it allows us to consistently evaluate players according to the decisions they can make and avoid doing so for decisions they cannot, regardless of whether the choices they make are high risk, low risk, paying off now, or have paid off in the past.