Do India and Sri Lanka really face-off more frequently than other teams?

If you think India and Sri Lanka play more frequently, here's a look at other frequent battles in international cricket.

 

With the ICC World T20 final approaching several sarcastic comments regarding the frequency of India-Sri Lanka matches have been doing rounds on social media. Abhishek Mukherjee tries to find out how frequent India-Sri Lanka matches have been.

 

Whenever Sri Lanka takes on India in an international contest of any sort, there is a general tone of dismay among (especially among the Indian fans): not an India-Sri Lanka match again! The general notion is that India and Sri Lanka play each other more frequently than any other pair of teams in the world.

 

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Of course, this is not true, given the routine the Australians and the Englishmen follow in the oldest surviving contest in international cricket. In the past five years Australia and England have played each other a whopping 63 times; India-Sri Lanka contests come third on the list with 43, next to (this may come as a surprise) the 46 Pakistan-Sri Lanka matches.

 

However, the comparison is a tad unfair, given the number of matches each side has played: while Australia has played 244 international matches, South Africa has played only 177, so it is only logical that Australia will have more matches per opponent.

 

A more valid parameter will be to calculate the percentage of matches played against the most prolific opposition with respect to all matches played by that side. In other words, if England has played 226 matches, of which 63 have been against Australia, 63/226 should be the number to look at instead of 63.

 

Let us check the most prolific oppositions for each team over the past five years. We are leaving out Zimbabwe since a substantial proportion of their matches have been against Bangladesh.

Note: We are using No. 1 opposition, No. 2 opposition, etc to denote the oppositions a side has played most frequently against for the sake of simplicity.

 

Team	Matches	No. 1 opposition (1)	Matches vs (1)	% Matches vs (1)
England	226	Australia	63	27.88%
Australia	244	England	63	25.82%
South Africa	177	Pakistan	36	20.34%
Sri Lanka	232	Pakistan	46	19.83%
Pakistan	233	Sri Lanka	46	19.74%
Bangladesh	139	Zimbabwe	27	19.42%
India	228	Sri Lanka	43	18.86%
West Indies	197	India	34	17.26%
New Zealand	184	Sri Lanka	28	15.22%

 

 

As is evident, India are actually seventh on the list. What has led to the notion, then? Is it the number of matches played by India against Sri Lanka compared to the second name (Australia in India’s case) on the list? Let us find that out.

Team	Matches	No. 1 opposition (1)	Matches vs (1)	No. 2 opposition (2)	Matches vs (2)	(1)/(2)
England	226	Australia	63	India	31	2.03
Australia	244	England	63	India	35	1.80
South Africa	177	Pakistan	36	England	26	1.38
Pakistan	233	Sri Lanka	46	South Africa	36	1.28
India	228	Sri Lanka	43	Australia	35	1.23
Bangladesh	139	Zimbabwe	27	West Indies	22	1.23
New Zealand	184	Sri Lanka	28	Pakistan	24	1.17
Sri Lanka	232	Pakistan	46	India	43	1.07
West Indies	197	India	34	Australia	32	1.06

 

Once again, though India ranks fifth on the list (marginally ahead of Bangladesh) there is no reason to believe that they play Sri Lanka more frequently than they play others. It is just another common notion among people who assume more than probe.

 

 (Abhishek Mukherjee is the Deputy Editor and Cricket Historian at CricketCountry. He blogs at http://ovshake.blogspot.in and can be followed on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ovshake42)

 

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