Cricsheet

Yesterday I released the data files for 219 County Championship matches from 2019 and 2021, and also made some additions to the various data formats to accomodate some of the various differences I encountered while processing the data. The new additions to the data formats are related to uncontested tosses and forfeited innings.

From 2016 to 2019 the County Championship allowed the away team to just choose to field at the start of the match rather than having a toss. In order to support this I’ve added an uncontested boolean field to the toss data with in the JSON, YAML, and XML data, and toss_uncontested field within the CSV files. If provided this field will be true in the JSON, XML, or CSV, and yes in the YAML. The other toss fields are still provided so that it’s clear which team “won” the uncontested toss and what the result of that was.

The concept of a forfeited innings has never arisen in over 8,000 matches I’d provided before, so I’ve had to decide how to support this. In order to do this I’ve added a forfeited field for innings in the JSON, YAML, and XML formats which, if provided, will be true in the JSON, or XML, and yes in the YAML files. If an innings is forfeited then no deliveries will be provided.

The XML data format has also received one further additional field, a declared field. While making the other additions I was surprised to find that the XML format didn;t already include it. If provided for an innings it will be true, as with the existing entry in the JSON format.

As a consequence of the addition of the various fields to the different data formats I’ve updated the default version for each format as follows: JSON, from 1.0.0 to 1.1.0; YAML, and XML, 0.91 to 0.92; “Original” CSV, 1.6.0 to 1.7.0, and “Ashwin” CSV, 2.1.0 to 2.2.0. Existing files have not been updated to the new versions as they don’t actually need the additional fields, only the new files will use those version. This shouldn’t cause any difficulties as the new fields are only additions.

Alongside the addition of the new fields I’ve also added some extra possible values for some existing fields. Specifically I’ve added 3 new possible values for the reason match replacements took place; covid_replacement, national_callup and national_release. The first, covid_replacement, indicates that a replacements took place under Covid protocols in place for the match. A national_callup replacement takes place when the replaced player is called up for their national team, and is thus replaced. Finally, national_release indicates that the replacing player has been released from national team duty and is allowed to be inserted into the game.

I intend to continue to add County Championship matches for this season as they take place, and previous years over time, along with looking into add Sheffield Shield matches as well. Any additions to the data formats will be announced as they happen.