Invisible Handedness: The Myth of Left-Right Batting Partnerships

Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP05/2026
Publication date: March 2026
Author(s):
Abstract:

Cricket's conventional wisdom holds that left-right batting partnerships disrupt bowlers by forcing constant line-and-length adjustments. We test this claim using ball-by-ball data from all men's international cricket: 96,000 partnerships and 3.4 million deliveries across Tests, ODIs and T20Is. After controlling for batsman quality and absorbing match-innings fixed effects, the mixed-hand partnership premium is precisely zero in all three formats. The null extends to every partnership-level scoring margin and is confirmed by randomization inference. Per-ball dismissal risk is higher for mixed-hand pairs, offsetting any run-scoring advantage. Ball-level mechanism tests show that strike rotation imposes a universal switching cost on bowlers, but this cost does not interact with hand composition. An Oaxaca--Blinder decomposition reveals that the raw descriptive premium is largely explained by the superior quality of left-handed batsmen at the international level. One partial exception emerges in T20Is, where quantile regressions detect positive effects across the interquartile range (25th, 50th and 75th percentiles), suggesting a format-specific mechanism that warrants further investigation with larger samples from domestic T20 leagues. Our findings illustrate how apparent diversity benefits in team production can arise from composition effects rather than complementarity.

JEL Classification:

Z20, Z29, L83, D24

Keywords:

cricket, handedness, team selection, batting partnerships, diversity

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