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Most people in India are born in August..

August 11th, 2009 | WeirdAndWonderful

…asserted the wife on her birthday. Well I pulled out some data from Cricinfo’s database of Indian players and it seems like most of our cricketers were born in December! (This includes anyone who ever played cricket for India):

+-----------+-------+
| Month     | Count |
|-----------+-------|
| December  |   867 |
| October   |   709 |
| November  |   688 |
| September |   679 |
| January   |   488 |
| May       |   453 |
| March     |   449 |
| July      |   438 |
| August    |   438 |
| April     |   422 |
| June      |   391 |
| February  |   334 |
+-----------+-------+

But then cricketers in India are very special people to start with – aren’t they?

  • Vineeth
    If you haven't read Outliers - here's a snippet that explains the idea... http://blog.puddleducks.ie/2008/12/19/outliers-...
  • Thats interesting read and could well be the reason why the data is so skewed but I need to research if such a cut-off does exist for the domestic cricketing tournaments.

    Here's another paper that explores the relationship between DOB and "luck" (PDF link).
    http://www.psy.herts.ac.uk/wiseman/papers/Born%...
  • uglybutbearable
    Interesting. Wonder if this links to the concept that Malcolm Gladwell writes about in in 'Outliers', where setting age-wise cut-offs based around particular dates end up favouring sportspersons who were born closer to that date. Would you know which date/month of the year is set as the cut-off date when defining the age groups for cricket, or when the age-group related teams are selected at the state-level? For example, for an under-14 team, would it be that only players born on or after November 30, 1995 would be considered eligible?

    [Arrived at your site through Will Luke's blog, The Corridor.]
  • It could be - but I am not aware of a single cut off like this that works across the entire country. Someone did explore the connection between cricketers' DOB and their performance but I don't think it established a conclusive theory:

    http://blogs.cricinfo.com/diffstrokes/archives/...

    I am aware of another such study on DOBs influencing how lucky someone is/feels:
    http://www.psy.herts.ac.uk/wiseman/papers/Born%...
  • Ya I think you are right , I have born on august, and my few friends also born in august. Thank you
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