Cricket team selection using data envelopment analysis

This paper suggests a new method for cricket team selection using data envelopment analysis (DEA). We propose a DEA formulation for evaluation of cricket players in different capabilities using multiple outputs. This evaluation determines efficient and inefficient cricket players and ranks them on the basis of DEA scores. The ranking can be used to choose the required number of players for a cricket team in each cricketing capability. A real dataset, Indian Premier League 4 (IPL 2011), cricket players having various capabilities is used to choose the best cricket team. The proposed method has the advantage of considering multiple factors related to the performance of players in multiple capabilities collected from IPL 4 and aggregates their scores using a linear programming DEA model. This DEA Aggregation gives the scores of players objectively instead of using subjective computations. The proposed DEA method can be used to form a national cricket team from several clubs or a team of top cricketers.