Version updated to 0.6

Posted: 14th of December, 2014

The data version included in every data file I provide, and explained on the format page of the site, has just been changed from 0.5 to 0.6. This actually reflects a relatively minor change, and is the first time I’ve bumped the version number since February 2013.

In the 1st Test of 2014 between Pakistan and Australia, Sarfraz Ahmed was dismissed and play stopped for tea. After the break Zulfiqar Babar, who had been batting with Ahmed, didn’t come back out and retired hurt. This meant that in the data I needed to record 2 dismissals related to a single delivery. A complication had arisen.

As I’d never even considered multiple wickets on a single delivery as a possibility, and since it had never occurred in the previous 31,271 wickets I provide data for, I’ve had to tweak the data format, along with numerous scripts, to allow for this possibility. The change I’ve implemented allows the wicket entry on a delivery to contain a list of wickets, rather than always assuming just one. Balls where only a single wicket fell (all 31,271 of them thus far) are unchanged, this tweak simply allows for the possibility of something different.

If you’ve written code that uses the data I provide you should make a small tweak to check for the existence of multiple wickets on a delivery, however, if you don’t, you’ll probably be fine apart from when you try to process that single Test match where this issue.

There will be substantial changes to the data format coming in the next number of months, which will add new information for many of the matches currently covered. These may require tweaks to some of your code, but I will be providing parallel versions of the data files for a period of time, allowing users to continue to use the older version while updating their code. More details on these changes soon.