Cricsheet

Today I’m releasing additions for every format of the data, along with accompanying version number bumps. Some of the formats are receiving more updates than others, but hopefully there will be something of interest to everyone. Most of these additions are fulfilling requests people have made over the last number of years, and which I’ve finally had the time to get around to.

All format additions

The biggest addition to the data, and the only one that has been added to all formats, is the actual_delivery field. This field contains the delivery number of the over as it would appear in ball-by-ball commentary, with the delivery number only advancing if the delivery is not a wide or no-ball. For example if the first ball of the 3rd over of an innings was a wide then this would have the value of 3.1 on both the first and second deliveries of the over.

YAML, XML, and CSV additions

The team_type field that has existed for a long time in the JSON format of the data has now been added to all of the other formats (YAML, XML, and both CSV formats). This will be either club or international as appropriate, and will always be present in the data. I’ve also added some version of target information to those formats. As with the existing JSON version this provides the runs and overs for any target for the innings, and will only appear for limited-overs matches. The exact details of how the information appears in the various formats differs so do read the documentation for your preferred format.

XML, and CSV additions

As I was adding the other fields mentioned in this post I happened to notice and be surprised that neither the XML nor CSV formats included any indication that an innings comprised a super-over. This oversight has been corrected, and this information appears (as a super_over field) in those formats for any innings where it is relevant. As with the target addition above the exact format of the addition differs by format so double check the documentation.

CSV-only additions

Finally, there are a number of additions that affect only the CSV formats. Most of them are based on requests I have received, while some have been added to bring about slightly better parity between the formats.

New additions to the info sections of both formats are match_type, match_type_number, and overs all of which include the same data as already provided in the other formats. There is also a new match_id field, which appears only in the CSV formats, which will hopefully make it easier for users (especially of the “Ashwin” format) to link the various data files together. Finally I’ve also added new declared and forfeited entries, within the info section, to indicate innings that were declared and forfeited (unsurprisingly). As with the super_over field mentioned earlier these have their own peculiarities and you can find all of the details in the documentation.

There are also a number of new fields added to each delivery. The first is non_boundary, which will be true if a 4 or 6 scored was not via an actual boundary, for example it was all run, or overthrows. There are also 3 new fields for fielders (fielder_1, fielder_2, and, fielder_3) which will be populated with any fielders involved in wickets which took place on the delivery.

In conclusion

All of these changes have unsurprisingly resulted in the version numbers for each data format. The JSON format has changed to 1.2.0, YAML and XML to 0.93, CSV (Ashwin format) to 2.3.0, and CSV (original format) to 1.8.0. You can find all of the details on the changes on the documentation pages for each format: JSON, YAML, XML, CSV (Ashwin), and CSV (original).