Advice for budding analysts

Your questions answered...

Yesterday on X/Twitter I got asked by Nihit for some advice on getting into professional analysis in cricket:-

I get asked this type of question a lot, so I thought it might be useful to write a little bit on the subject to help those who are interested in a potential career in cricket analysis. This is an honest assessment in an attempt to prevent people having to deal with the same issues which I have encountered.

First of all, it’s probably worth me mentioning that getting into the cricket industry has been one of the most difficult projects that I’ve ever tried to encounter. Gatekeepers exist around every corner, and major other hurdles include the fact that owners and coaches often don’t value the impact that an analyst specialising in recruitment and strategy, such as myself, can bring. Teams still aren’t always (or even often) run via meritocratic methods.

This isn’t universally the case, though, with some coaches and senior management recognising the value of detailed analysis and out-of-the-box thinking, and it’s not unheard of for coaches to have to pay strategy analysts out of their own pockets because the owners don’t want to pay themselves. I’ve always found it strange that owners are very happy to pay decent money for ‘mentors’ or ‘ambassadors’ but not for people who have the potential to actually improve their teams on-pitch performance.

Essentially what I’m trying to say is that someone looking to set up a career in cricket analytics needs to manage their expectations. Anyone thinking they can start up now and be working with a variety of major teams in a year’s time is being pretty unrealistic. It takes time, effort, a lot of hard graft and the ability to deal with constant disappointment.

I can remember sending off hundreds of speculative messages to people involved with teams - coaches, owners, CEOs, anyone who worked at with a professional team basically - and while I never worked it out formally, I would guesstimate that I got replies to around 2% of the messages I sent.

Similar to the cliched phrase, you might say that 2% of something is better than 100% of nothing, but it’s not really the case. It was basically always ‘thanks but no thanks’. Most people don’t even bother to reply. It’s difficult to deny that my teams beating these people’s teams in matches over the last few years has given some extra satisfaction when it happens.

So, if you’re going to try and get into the industry, I’d recommend a starting point of writing about cricket on social media and/or a website or even podcasting/video creation. Hypothesise with data and see what works and what doesn’t. Personally, I found that it really helps clarify thought processes by writing them down and being held to account for your analysis.

Not only this, but you’ve got to enjoy what you do and be happy to do it without any expectations of employment, and particularly without any expectations of getting rich. This means that unless you’re already independently wealthy, you’ll probably need to do it in conjunction with a regular job - that might not suit everyone’s work/life balance, but it’s a pretty realistic scenario that many aspiring analysts will have to deal with.

That would be the first step that I’d suggest. Just start creating content as a hobby and go from there. As long as you are enjoying what you are doing with little in the way of expectations, that’s a reasonable starting point.

Moving on through the journey, you'll need a fair bit of patience as well as luck. If you’re fortunate, you’ll catch the attention of some people with decision-making influence on social media who may be able to give you opportunities.

It would, however, be unlikely that you’ll pick up a position of huge responsibility in the early stages of your employment with a team. This is something that people on social media might not fully grasp, because there’s a tendency to think that if a team makes bad decision it’s the analysts fault. Often, that’s not the case at all - they might just not have the power or influence to prevent that mistake happening.

Getting that first job is the most important job that you’ll ever get in cricket, because then you have an opportunity to showcase your ability to both coaches and players, and start to build up those relationships. Subsequently, you might be in a position to go with that coach to another team that they work with, and then things can potentially snowball from there.

Finally, courses. I think opinion in the industry is split on this currently. Myself and another really good analyst and strategist have chatted about offering courses but it’s not a simple undertaking.

I’d only really feel comfortable doing it if I could teach some pretty unique skills which would help people get employment. Also, I’d feel a bit uncomfortable if people spending money on a course would then be facing a real battle to pick up any employment in what they’ve learnt. It’s a tough one.

From an academic perspective, generally I lean more to real-life experience than formal qualifications. I get sent CVs on a regular basis and while I’m not in a position to employ others currently, I’m more impressed when I see examples of work or experience in roles/internships as opposed to exam qualifications.

Concluding, I hope that posting this has been useful for the readers looking to enter a career in cricket analysis. While the journey is likely to be rocky, it may well be that the skills that you pick up on the way could also be applicable to other industries as well, so as long as you can deal with the hurdles, give it a try!

Finally, anyone keen to discuss future opportunities and how I can help their organisation can get in touch via sportsanalyticsadvantage@gmail.com.