Richard Clarke is a cricket writer and author based just outside London. He is a columnist for The Cricket Paper and publishes the only free, weekly, email newsletter on county cricket. You can find Richard's cricket alter-ego, The Grumbler, on Twitter (@The_Grumbler). In 2020, he wrote Last-Wicket Stand, a semi-autobiographical tale about the multiple crises enveloping the English game and the challenges of midlife. It is much better than it sounds, honest!
Richard has been a betting writer for Betfair and The Sportsman. But he's also had real jobs. After freelancing as a sports journalist on national newspapers in England, he was appointed the first website editor at Arsenal FC in 2002. He would go on to manage all content at the Premier League giants until 2015. He has also worked at football organisations in the USA, Indonesia, Philippines and the UAE. Currently, Richard leads a Masters degree in Sports Media and Marketing at a specialist sports business university while running his consultancy, Sports Content Strategy.
A passionate Essex fan, his hero is Graham Gooch. Richard was at Headingley in 1991 when the moustachioed maestro hit an unbeaten 154 against a West Indies attack including Roberts, Holding, Garner and Croft in their prime. It is considered one of the greatest innings of all-time. These days, Richard enjoys nothing more than sitting at Chelmsford on a chilly Tuesday morning in September watching Sir Alastair Cook effortlessly clipping another four off his hips. Whatever makes him happy.
Toss is one of the oldest traditions in cricket and so is the toss prediction market when it comes to cricket betting.
It is one of those aspects of cricket that has not changed for about 145 years of international cricket since the very first Test match in 1877.
Though the toss prediction is purely a matter of chance, it can greatly affect the outcome of a cricket match and thus toss prediction appeals to cricket fans and bettors alike.
The only information relevant to today toss prediction is historical data about tosses and a captain’s decision after winning the toss. Although predicting the toss outcome is a futile activity in most cases, we use the historical toss decision data in our predictions for today’s cricket match.
The advent of T20 cricket initiated a wave of private leagues across the globe – such as the Indian Premier League, Big Bash League, and Pakistan Super League to name a few. A T20 match is always about to start somewhere in the world and thus cricket fans are often in search of today toss prediction.
The importance of toss varies according to the format, length and venue of a cricket match. In Test matches, where the conditions are tailored to the needs of the home team, the toss can dictate the match result, especially when the home team wins it.
For our users who indulge in betting on the match result market, a more important question than toss prediction is how does the toss affect the match odds?
On an overcast day, on a green surface, winning the toss and bowling first shifts the odds in favour of the bowling team. In a match among the equals, the toss has a major effect on the outcome of the match.
Cricket betting analysts include all the parameters that affect the result of the match in our cricket match prediction and cricket betting tips. One of the questions we try to answer is – how does the toss affect our match predictions?
The coin may favour any team on any given day, but if it favours a team in the right match conditions – home/away, spinning/seaming surface, presence of dew etc – the toss can be a decisive factor.
To put things in perspective, let’s take the example of India in Tests. They have built a fortress at home. In the last 10 years, India’s winning percentage after winning the toss at home is close to 80% – 24 matches, 19 wins, 2 losses and 3 draws.
You can expect cricket betting predicting an India win if they win the toss at home in a Test match. That is how strongly the toss can affect today match prediction.
A coin toss is purely a random event. The concept of best toss prediction exists only in theory. Every time the coin goes up, both teams have a 50% chance of winning the toss.
Many analysts claim to provide the best toss prediction but the reality is no one can predict the toss outcome. It is not something that can be derived, like match results, from the historical data or team form. Don’t let anyone fool you into believing that toss outcome can be predicted.
The best thing about the toss is that is it purely unbiased. Often, in order to provide the best toss prediction, many consider the event of toss under the law of averages erroneously. What people consider the law of averages is basically, the law of large numbers.
Let me explain. It is possible for, say team A to win 80% to 90% tosses within the first 10 to 15 events against Team B. However, when the number of tosses between two teams inches towards a large number such as 100, the win probability starts to move towards 50% for both teams.
Now, a team can be on a roll against a particular in the short term, but we need to understand that it is just a snapshot in a longer time frame and that it would even out longitudinally.
The fun part is, it impossible to know when would it start moving towards the mean. That’s why best toss predictions are hard to deduce.
To understand this better, let’s take a look at the toss data of the two teams who have played the most Test matches between them – England and Australia.
Total Tosses | Australia Toss Wins | Australia Toss Win% | England Toss Wins | England Toss Win% |
356 | 179 | 50.28% | 177 | 49.72% |
Matches | Won | Drawn | Lost | Win % | |
Home Side Won Toss | |||||
Elected to Bat | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 50.00 |
Elected to Bowl | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 100.00 |
Overall Total | 8 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 62.50 |
Home Side Lost Toss | |||||
Fielded First | 8 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 25.00 |
Bat First | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 75.00 |
Overall Total | 12 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 41.67 |
Away Side Won Toss | |||||
Elected to Bat | 8 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 25.00 |
Elected to Bowl | 4 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 25.00 |
Overall Total | 12 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 25.00 |
Away Side Lost Toss | |||||
Fielded First | 6 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 16.67 |
Bat First | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0.00 |
Overall Total | 8 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 12.50 |
The betting companies often place the “to win the toss” market around the 1.80 mark. Some of the best toss prediction betting odds are provided by Betway, 888Sport, 10Bet, Comeon, Parimatch etc. who constantly provide the toss betting odds around the 1.9 mark.
Cricket Betting provides a well-researched preview of the IPL match along with today IPL toss prediction.
The flip of a coin really should be a random event. However, it does seem that some Captains just know how to win the match toss. Our estimate about today IPL match toss prediction is an educated estimate.
To get a better idea of who might today IPL toss prediction favour in the next IPL match, Cricket Betting has crunched the numbers since IPL 2008 of India Premer League.
Our analysis and commentary on today IPL match toss prediction would be based on the following data. Coin toss being such a random event, the readers are advised to consider our analysis with a pinch of salt.
Toss win % of teams since IPL 2021:
Team | Matches | Won Toss | % Win |
SRH | 31 | 20 | 65% |
DC | 33 | 18 | 55% |
KKR | 34 | 17 | 50% |
RCB | 34 | 20 | 59% |
GT | 19 | 13 | 68% |
LSG | 19 | 9 | 47% |
MI | 30 | 17 | 57% |
CSK | 33 | 12 | 36% |
PBKS | 31 | 9 | 29% |
RR | 34 | 13 | 38% |
Although coin toss is a completely random event, the team winning the toss has better control over the rest of the match.
That is probably why our users often ask – “coin toss – is there any advantage?” Let’s try to tackle this question with Test match data in the 21st century for 8 major Test nations.
1.Overall, the team winning the toss has won 45% of the matches as opposed to 39% wins after losing the toss. A clear 6% advantage after winning the toss.
2. Sri Lanka have been reliant on toss wins to win the Tests in the 21st century. Their win percentage of 46% after winning the toss which comes down by 15% when they lose the toss.
3. Australia, India and South Africa have won at least 50% of the matches when they won the toss – which is quite substantial given that more than 20% of Test matches end up in a draw.
4. Australia, Pakistan and South Africa have had about a 9% advantage after winning the toss while India had an 8% toss advantage.
5. Interestingly, England and West Indies have not been able to capitalize on the toss advantage. Their win % is exactly the same irrespective of the toss result.
6. The majority of the teams have a similar draw percentage irrespective of the toss result. Except for India and New Zealand, the remaining teams have drawn more matches when they lost the toss.
Toss Advantage in Tests (Since 2001):
| Won the Toss |
|
| Lost the Toss |
|
| Toss Advantage |
Team | Win% | Loss% | Draw% | Win% | Loss% | Draw% | |
Australia | 63% | 22% | 15% | 54% | 29% | 17% | 9% |
England | 43% | 34% | 22% | 43% | 34% | 23% | 0% |
India | 50% | 22% | 28% | 43% | 32% | 26% | 8% |
South Africa | 54% | 27% | 19% | 45% | 34% | 21% | 9% |
Sri Lanka | 46% | 30% | 24% | 31% | 45% | 24% | 15% |
Pakistan | 45% | 36% | 19% | 36% | 44% | 19% | 9% |
New Zealand | 38% | 33% | 29% | 36% | 40% | 24% | 2% |
West Indies | 21% | 55% | 24% | 21% | 53% | 26% | 0% |
Overall | 45% | 32% | 22% | 39% | 38% | 23% | 6% |
The data shows that there is a clear advantage to winning the toss. A general trend is that the teams winning the toss tend to win more matches while the ones losing the toss tend to lose or draw more.
So, you must be wondering – what does a test captain do when winning the coin toss? This question reminds me of an old saying in Test cricket which goes something like this – If you win the toss in Test cricket, look at the opposition, assess the conditions, and then decide to bat first anyway.
The toss data from the 21st century highlights the fact that toss winning captain in Tests prefers batting first. After all, who would want to bat last on a crumbling pitch?
What does a test captain do when winning the coin toss? (since 2001)
Team | Total Tosses Won | Bat First | Bat First % | Bowl First | Bowl first% |
Australia | 114 | 97 | 85% | 17 | 15% |
England | 134 | 97 | 72% | 37 | 28% |
India | 104 | 83 | 80% | 21 | 20% |
Sri Lanka | 106 | 71 | 67% | 35 | 33% |
South Africa | 94 | 68 | 72% | 26 | 28% |
Pakistan | 80 | 50 | 63% | 30 | 38% |
West Indies | 100 | 50 | 50% | 50 | 50% |
New Zealand | 82 | 39 | 48% | 43 | 52% |
Here are some nuggets from this data
Interestingly, if you ask the same question for IPL prediction such as the one we asked for Test matches earlier i.e. – what does an IPL captain do when winning the coin toss? – the answer might surprise you.
Here’s what we found:
1.In IPL, the captains tend to bowl first after winning the coin toss.
2.DC, RCB, KKR, and PBKS chose to bowl first more than 65% of instances with RCB highest at 71%.
3.Barring CSK, no other team has chosen to bat first more than bowl first.
Team | Total Matches | Tosses Won | Bat First | Bat First % | Bowl First | Bowl First % |
Mumbai Indians | 217 | 114 | 51 | 45% | 63 | 55% |
Delhi Capitals | 210 | 108 | 37 | 34% | 71 | 66% |
Royal Challengers Bangalore | 210 | 97 | 28 | 29% | 69 | 71% |
Kolkata Knight Riders | 209 | 106 | 35 | 33% | 71 | 67% |
Punjab Kings | 204 | 90 | 28 | 31% | 62 | 69% |
Chennai Super Kings | 194 | 103 | 53 | 51% | 50 | 49% |
Rajasthan Royals | 175 | 95 | 35 | 37% | 60 | 63% |
Sunrisers Hyderabad | 138 | 64 | 27 | 42% | 37 | 58% |
As we have seen earlier, the captain’s decision to bowl first after winning the toss is sort of becoming a trend in IPL. Does this apply to match results as well? What do statistics say about the coin toss in the IPL? Let’s take a brief look:
1.Contrary to popular belief, a coin toss win doesn’t affect the match result in the same way for all the teams.
2.CSK has won the highest (65% wins) after winning the toss. No other team crosses 60%.
3.MI, RCB and KKR have won more matches (>50% wins) after winning the toss than they have lost.
4.DC (48% wins), PBKS (43% wins), RR (49% wins) and SRH (45% wins) have all lost more matches after winning the toss than they won.
What do the statistics say about the coin toss in the IPL? (Data since 2008)
Team | Total Matches | Total Wins | Toss Wins | Match Wins after winning the toss | % Match Wins after winning the toss |
Mumbai Indians | 217 | 127 | 114 | 67 | 59% |
Delhi Capitals | 210 | 96 | 108 | 52 | 48% |
Royal Challengers Bangalore | 210 | 100 | 97 | 49 | 51% |
Kolkata Knight Riders | 209 | 108 | 106 | 59 | 56% |
Punjab Kings | 204 | 94 | 90 | 39 | 43% |
Chennai Super Kings | 194 | 117 | 103 | 67 | 65% |
Rajasthan Royals | 175 | 86 | 95 | 47 | 49% |
Sunrisers Hyderabad | 138 | 69 | 64 | 29 | 45% |
Many people believe in astrology and seek advice while deciding on today match toss prediction. It must be emphasized that Astrology is regarded as pseudoscience. It has been falsified time and again and has no scientific validity.
The alignment of stars and planets, which is the basis for Astrology, has nothing to do with a captain winning the toss on a given day. We cannot advise our users to seek advice from astrology for today match toss prediction.
We recommend that our users accept the randomness of a coin toss and not let anyone, astrology or otherwise, fool them into believing that the outcome of the toss can be predicted with certainty.
Manish was hooked on cricket as a 9-year-old back in 1992 during the ODI World Cup. Those iconic semi-finals watched along with his father left an indelible mark on him. He hasn't left cricket since. Or, more appropriately, it's the other way around.
About 13 years into the IT industry, he decided to shift base and follow cricket, wherever it might take him. Manish started with content writing for various publications. He, along with his friends, created GameOfStats - a statistics portal for fantasy sports enthusiasts - helping them create stats-based fantasy teams. He is currently a jack of all things and master of a few on this very portal - cricket-betting.com.
Being a stats expert, he spends time understanding the odds provided by the sportsbooks for various markets. He is astounded by how very little has been done when it comes to using cricket stats in predicting the outcome of an event. He aspires to change that.
Manish loves it when an underdog wins the game. He doesn’t have any favourite cricketers. Only the ones that inspire him more than others. He considers MS Dhoni to be the closest to a perfect sportsman - Brains, Brawn and Nerves. He also thinks Ben Stokes is a superstar and that Ravindra Jadeja should have some fielding drills named after him.
Manish wishes to visit major sports venues across the world. Until then he is busy talking, writing, analyzing, and debating all things cricket.
Prasenjit Dey stands as an accomplished and widely recognized sports journalist, garnering acclaim for his exceptional contributions to the field. With a prolific career characterized by insightful reporting and compelling narratives, he has firmly established himself as a prominent figure in sports journalism.
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