The toss
How much does winning the toss matter?
In most sports the coin toss is a formality. A football captain picks an end and a tennis player picks whether to serve, and nobody mentions it again. In cricket the toss is part of the contest. It is broadcast live, it leads the first-morning reports, and a captain can be remembered for one call. Ricky Ponting won the toss at Edgbaston in 2005, sent England in, watched them make 407, and lost by two runs. Ask most people who follow the game and they will tell you the toss can decide a match. The numbers say it matters far less than that, and only in one format.
Win the toss in a Test and you win 54.4% of the games that reach a result: 395 wins to 331 losses in the 895 men’s Tests we hold since December 2001. Win it in an ODI and you’re back to 50.3%, across 2,161 full-length games with a winner.
| Format | Decided | Toss winner |
|---|---|---|
| Tests | 726 | 54.4% |
| ODIs | 2,161 | 50.3% |
| T20Is (full members) | 1,000 | 49.8% |
| Club T20s | 5,286 | 51.1% |
The pitch does the work in Tests
A one-day pitch has to last a day. A Test pitch has to last five, and it gets worse. First innings in our Tests average 343 runs, second innings 322, third innings 252 and fourth innings 185. Set a side 300 or more to win in the last innings and they have chased it 17 times in 334 attempts. Even a target between 201 and 250 was reached only 39% of the time.
That is why the toss is worth something. It hands one captain the choice of when to bat on the pitch, and the first-innings runs that come with it. A first-innings lead turned into a win in 68% of our Tests and a defeat in only 13%.
The gap is not about stronger sides happening to call right, either. On our team ratings, with home advantage allowed for, toss winners should have won 49.8% of those decided Tests. They won 54.4%.
Does bowling first hurt?
On the raw record it looks like it. Captains who won the toss and batted won 57.1% of their decided Tests (282 to 212). Those who bowled won 48.7% (113 to 119), worse than calling wrong and being put in.
But the captains who bowled were usually leading the weaker side. On our ratings they should have won 47.7% of those Tests, and they won 48.7%, slightly more than expected. The captains who batted should have won 50.8%, and they won 57.1%. So bowling first has not cost sides games. It has thrown away most of what the toss gave them.
Most captains bat anyway. Toss winners batted in 68% of our Tests, and in India they batted 95% of the time.
Where the coin counts
| Host | Tests | Toss W–L | Batted |
|---|---|---|---|
| UAE | 31 | 16–7 | 87% |
| Sri Lanka | 89 | 46–27 | 81% |
| Pakistan | 36 | 15–9 | 83% |
| New Zealand | 83 | 38–27 | 18% |
| West Indies | 86 | 34–27 | 60% |
| South Africa | 95 | 48–39 | 66% |
| Australia | 121 | 57–47 | 79% |
| England | 154 | 64–63 | 56% |
| India | 99 | 38–38 | 95% |
| Bangladesh | 67 | 26–29 | 81% |
The UAE, where Pakistan played their home Tests for a decade, is the clearest case: toss winners won 16 and lost 7 there, and 27 of the 31 chose to bat. In Sri Lanka it was 46 to 27.
India is the surprise. Almost every captain there bats first, yet toss winners are 38 wins to 38 losses. India won 64% of their home Tests over this period, and they did it whichever way the coin fell.
New Zealand turns the logic around. Captains there bowled first in 82% of Tests, and the toss winner still came out 38 to 27 ahead.
England, where the toss does nothing
In 154 Tests in England, the toss winner has won 64 and lost 63. The reason is what captains did with it. Those who batted first won 41 and lost 30. Those who bowled first won 23 and lost 33. Only in New Zealand are captains more tempted to bowl first than in England, where 44% of toss winners did so.
England is also the one place where bowling first has cost sides more than the toss was worth. Our ratings gave the captains who bowled there a 47.1% chance of winning those decided Tests. They won 41.1%. Ponting at Edgbaston was one of 56.
It shows in England’s own record, too. When England win the toss they win 55.1% of their decided Tests (65 to 53). When they lose it, they win 56.2% (59 to 46). No other leading Test side is so indifferent to the coin.
| Team | Won toss: W–L | Lost toss: W–L |
|---|---|---|
| Australia | 71–26 | 59–37 |
| India | 51–22 | 54–38 |
| South Africa | 58–27 | 42–34 |
| England | 65–53 | 59–46 |
| New Zealand | 34–27 | 36–39 |
| Sri Lanka | 43–35 | 24–37 |
| Pakistan | 30–32 | 27–44 |
| West Indies | 22–39 | 17–55 |
Australia go from winning 73% of their decided Tests to 61% depending on the coin. Sri Lanka go from 55% to 39%, the biggest swing of any side.
ODIs: nothing to see
Across our 2,161 full-length ODIs with a winner, the toss winner won 50.3%. On our team ratings, with home advantage allowed for, they should have won 49.6%. The coin adds nothing you could measure.
What the toss gives you in an ODI is the chance to chase, and that is barely worth having. Sides batting second won 52.2% of these games. Here the choice runs the other way from Tests: toss winners who fielded should have won 49.3% and won 52.6%, while those who batted should have won 50.0% and won 48.2%. Captains have caught on. Toss winners chose to field in 41% of ODIs between 2002 and 2009 and in 58% since 2018. A side that makes 300 batting first still wins 82% of the time.
The one place that stands out is Sri Lanka. Toss winners there have won 57.2% of 152 ODIs, and sides batting first have won 57.2% too, against 47.8% across all ODIs. Toss winners there chose to field only 26% of the time, and in Sri Lanka setting a target has been the way to win.
What matters more than the toss
Home advantage. The home side won 59% of our full-length ODIs, and it made no difference whether they called right (58.9%) or wrong (58.3%). In Tests the home side won 459 and lost 262. The toss then adds to that: hosts who won it won 67.3% of their decided Tests (255 to 124), against 59.6% when they lost it (204 to 138).
So in a Test, the toss is worth about five extra wins in every hundred decided games, more in Sri Lanka and the UAE, and nothing at all in England. In a one-day game, the coin is just a coin.
How we counted
Men’s international matches from Cricsheet: Tests since December 2001, ODIs since June 2002. ODI and T20I figures count full-length games with a winner, leaving out ties, no-results and rain-shortened matches. Club T20s are the men’s leagues we cover, since 2016. Hosts are the country a ground stands in, and a side playing a home series elsewhere — Pakistan in the UAE from 2008 to 2019 — is the home side there.